Listen Here
By Victoria Hansen, HansenV@Findlay.edu
After 63 years of service, the Findlay Mall shut its doors officially on January 31, 2025. However, the Maurices and Bath and Body Works still occupy their space.
“I want to say [construction] will start at the beginning of April, but I know that they have started doing some things, like there was an auction where they sold off a lot of the things inside,” said Jess Wiler, who works at the Maurices, one of the founding stores at the mall. “We’re just doing what we can and experiencing all the things that are going on. We get a lot of foot traffic from people just coming in and keep on walking. We’re set to relocate, but corporate hasn’t told us were yet.”
While the Maurices and Bath and Body Works are still open, the rest of the mall lays silent and empty. Many storefronts were empty before the store’s closing announcement. The former Great American Cookies store has a signed red and white tile wall from the staff who worked the final day.
“Thanks for all the sweet memories!! We can’t wait to make more with you!!” reads one message on the wall. Another message left on the wall says to check the store’s Instagram page for their new location. The page currently says that they are closed for relocation. Gabel’s Garage, a cards and collectables store, moved from the mall to a storefront on Main Street.
The only accessible entrance is in the back of the mall, past the empty anchor storefront that previously held Cedar Creek Church. Posters for the church and other businesses still hang up on the hallway that leads to the main corridor for the mall. This main corridor is open up to the two remaining stores, but a lattice gate has been put up shortly after the stores, deterring curious mall walkers and urban explorers.
The Findlay Village Mall wasn’t always the Findlay Mall. Founded in 1962, the outdoor Fort Findlay Village Shopping Center bore little resemblance to what we know today. The shopping center was enclosed into a mall in 1974. The mall had over 60 stores in the 90s, including an arcade. The 2010s brought major troubles to the mall, with the Sears anchor closing in 2014 and the JC Penny anchor closing in 2017, leaving a vacant space for the rest of the mall’s lifespan.
Due to the rise of online shopping on websites such as Amazon, malls have struggled across the country. It’s so common that there’s a name for it: the Amazon effect. The Amazon effect is the term for “the disruption of brick-and-mortar stores in the retail market, caused by a dramatic increase in online sales,” according to a Cleo article. The COVID-19 pandemic compounded the Amazon effect, with lockdowns making online shopping more viable and providing protection from the pandemic. This has been dubbed the retail apocalypse by Cleo.
