Originally, a small outdoor shopping center was opened by Saul Biskind[3] in 1958[4] on what was a field of strawberries. The plaza contained a Sears (west end), F. W. Woolworth Company (center west), and a Pick-N-Pay grocery store (east end), along with a small-scale J. C. Penney and other stores. A freestanding May Company Cleveland store was built to the east of the original plaza in 1965.[5]
The enclosed mall was opened in 1976[4] and attached to the east end of the existing May Company building. It featured new, larger J. C. Penney and Sears stores. In 1980, Hexalon Real Estate—an affiliate of what is now Unibail-Rodamco—became an investor in the mall. The 1980s saw the opening of the Plaza South attached to the original strip (now renamed the Plaza) and the 1987 addition of the award-winning South Court to the mall.[6] Additionally, 2 mid-level hotels and several office facilities, such as Corporate Center and Technology Park, were built proximal to the retail facilities. These served to feed customers into the Mall and Plazas, as did the strategic location near Lorain Road, Brookpark Road, Great Northern Boulevard, and Interstate 480.
In 1991, Hexalon bought out the remaining Biskind stake in the mall[7] and undertook a significant upgrade and remodel in 1992. It hired The Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation as its management company[7] until 2000, when Rodamco's Urban Shopping Centers assumed management. The Biskind family, which had retained the Plazas,[7] eventually sold them to DDR Corp. in 1997.[8]
May Company Cleveland was renamed Kaufmann's in 1993, and became Macy's in 2006.[9]The Westfield Group acquired the shopping center in early 2002, and renamed it "Westfield Shoppingtown Great Northern." Dillard's was added on March 19, 2003, expanding the South Court into a full-fledged new wing. Westfield dropped "Shoppingtown" from the mall's name in June 2005, around the time that a newly built 84,000-square-foot (7,800-square-meter)Dick's Sporting Goods (originally planned to be Galyan's) opened.
The original food court, which had been located between Sears and J. C. Penney, was moved adjacent to Dick's Sporting Goods in 2011.[6] In March 2013, construction began at site of the original food court for a 10-screen Regal Entertainment Group movie theater, three new restaurants, and extra renovations; this addition was completed by December of that year.[10] The mall was sold to Starwood Retail Partners, a subsidiary of Starwood Capital Group, in the midst of construction.[11]
On June 1, 2020, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 28 stores nationwide. The store closed August 16, 2020. This was the last Sears store in Ohio,[12] besides a Sears Hometown Store in Norwalk, which is closing in 2023 as part of a plan to close all Sears Hometown stores.
The mall became managed by Pacific Retail Capital Partners in 2020.[13]
Stagnation Period
At its peak in the 2000s and the 2010s, Great Northern Mall boasted 120 retailers.
Great Northern is one of those malls like the Mall at Tuttle Crossing outside Columbus, or the Great Lakes Mall outside of Mentor that did not fully recover following the mass reopening of businesses across the United States in the months and years following the initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
In 2021, the mall’s ownership was transferred to Pacific Retail Capital Partners after its previous owner Starwood Capital Group was experiencing financial difficulties, Starwood also owned SouthPark Mall in Strongsville, and Belden Village Mall in Canton, Ohio, both of which were also sold to different owners/management companies
The malls occupancy rate prior to 2020 was consistently over 90%, over the years there has been an exodus of most of the long-standing national chain stores typically seen in malls due to the stores’ company’s bankruptcies (Christopher Banks left the mall around 2020, Rue21 in 2024), or due to the ever growing online shopping sector (H&M closed at Great Northern in 2021 as a response for restructuring, while H&M at Crocker Park nearby was downsized to one floor as opposed to two; Express closed at Great Northern as that company was experiencing financial difficulties following the pandemic)
On December 10, 2022, Regal Cinemas announced plans to close along with 23 theaters in the United States, as a response to that company’s financial difficulties after the pandemic. The theater closed down on January 26, 2023.[citation needed] On June 13, 2024, the theater reopened under the management of Phoenix Theatres.[14]
In 2024, the occupancy rate was between 70 to 80%, with most storefronts being replaced with local chains or some sort of small business. Macy's had put their Great Northern Mall location up for sale in 2024, it has been rumored for years that Macys would possibly close at Great Northern, but the store is apparently still profitable. In 2025, a plethora of retailers left the mall; Aeropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Forever 21, and FYE. Occupancy has since stabilized to just over 70%.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
RTA