Canton Centre (Canton, Ohio)

USA / Ohio / Meyers Lake / Canton, Ohio
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First built in 1965 as Mellett Mall, a shopping mall named in honor of local news mogul Donald Ring Mellett who was murdered by the Canton Mob way back in 1926. In the early 1960s the Mellet Homes Corporation would be established and would build the Mellett Mall as an open-air shopping center. After one year, it would become Canton's first enclosed shopping mall, originally anchored by Zwick's, O'Neill's and J. C. Penny's. After just four years open, the nearby Belden Village Mall would open to shoppers which competed against Mellett Mall with a larger and more modern mall.

In 1988, the mall underwent a $50 Million renovation adding a food court and was renamed Canton Centre Mall. That same year, Zwick's was taken over by Montgomery Ward's. In 1989, O'Niell's was taken over by May Compnay Ohio. They in turn would be abosrbed by Kaufmann's in 1993. By 1993, the mall had lost significant traffic to the Belden Village Mall and it's surrounding business sector. In 1997, Motgomery Ward's would go bankrupt, and in 2000, would close all of their stores.

The mall was sold in September of 2001 to a new company who decided to "de-mall" the shopping center and sell the building as individual portions. This led to the demolition of an entire wing of the mall as well as the former Montgomery Ward's building. A Walmart Supercenter would be built on that part of the land. In 2006, Kaufmann's was taken over by Macy's giving that store its third name change. In Janury of 2008, Macy's closed its doors for good and the mall owner decided to close off the entirety of that corridor. In September of that year, the former food court would be demolished for the construction of strip stores. As for when the mall officially "closed" for good, there was no "official" closing day. The final corridor of the mall that led to Penny's had stayed open in recent years acting as a "second exit" to that store, but all remaining tenants in that corridor had long since vacated. In 2020, the former Macy's store became a self-storage center. In late 2024, after years of trying to force ownership to maintain the entire building, action was taken by Stark County to demolish the remains of the building outside the former Macy's, Penny's, and the strip businesses in the front.
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Coordinates:   40°47'40"N   81°25'24"W
This article was last modified 9 months ago