Richmond Town Square
Richmond Town Square was a super regional shopping mall known locally as 'Richmond' or 'Richmond Mall', located in Richmond Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, at the intersection of Richmond Road and Wilson Mills Road. It opened on September 22, 1966 as Richmond Mall, and was developed by mall developer Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. Original anchors were Sears and JCPenney, alongside a Loews Theater and Woolworths. The mall included in-line tenants such as Richman Brothers and Winkelman's.
Mall features
The Richmond Town Square Branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library opened in the mall in 1988. Originally housed in a freestanding boutique kiosk, the branch showed significant circulation growth. The kiosk was forced to close in August 1998 due to a major renovation of the mall, but the branch library reopened in September 1999 in a location by the northeast mall entrance, next to Sears.History
The Richmond Town Square opened in September 1966 as Richmond Mall.In 1997, Woolworths closed its store at the mall. In 1998, Kaufmann's was added to the mall as an anchor, originally located at the Euclid Square Mall in Euclid, Ohio, the anchor changes included the expansion of the Loews Theater from a 10-screen theater to a 20-screen theater, and the addition a junior-anchor, Barnes & Noble. Also in 1998, DeBartolo Realty Corp. merged with Simon Property Group, and in the same year Simon remodeled the mall, expanded it, and renamed it. This renovation took advantage of new and emerging technologies "in materials, as well as architectural and decorative innovations" The total cost of the renovation was reported as US$100 million.
In 2006, Kaufmann's was rebranded to Macy's as a part of the Federated–The [May Department Stores Company|May] merger. Also in 2006, the Loews Theater was rebranded to Regal Cinemas. In 2010, the Barnes & Noble store at the mall closed as a round of closures by the company. In 2012, Planet Fitness opened a fitness center in the building. On May 28, 2014, it was revealed that Richmond Town Square was one of two malls along with Great Lakes Mall in northeast Ohio that would have its ownership transferred from Simon Property Group to its spin-off Washington Prime Group. In January 2015, Macy's announced the store at the mall would be closing as part of a plan to close 14 of its stores nationwide. As of mid March 2015, the Macy's store was shuttered, with all exterior signage removed. The mall was sold to the Kohan Retail Investment Group for $7.25 million in November 2016.
On January 4, 2017, Sears announced that its store would be closing in March 2017. On March 17, 2017, JCPenney announced they would close their location on July 31, 2017. On August 31, 2020, Kohan Retail Investment Group announced that the mall would close permanently to allow for redevelopment to take place. The only remaining anchors at the mall are a 20-screen Regal Cinemas theater LifeStorage, of which is in the former Macy's building, and Planet Fitness of which occupies the former Barnes & Noble building, while the two other anchors spaces, Sears, and JCPenney remain vacant and have since their 2017 closures.