“Keep It in the Mall!” -or- The “Sterilized Abandonment” of Tri-County

Empty food court of the Tri-County Mall in suburban Cincinnati.

The store sold t-shirts emblazoned with the logos of bands I liked, but on that particular day I wasn’t looking for clothing, I was looking for a job. After the manager glanced at my application, she invited me to the food court for an interview. There, next to the generic Chinese food and across from the Burger King, I accepted a “sales associate” position at Hot Topic. The whole process took less than half an hour.

Mall exterior and entrance as seen in May 2022.

Every fall as a teenager, I was unemployed. The seasonality of my summer theme park gig created an annual need to find something that could hold me over through the winter or potentially lure me away from the park. Although I was once named “District Employee of the Month,” Hot Topic in Cincinnati’s Tri-County Mall ended up not being a career I wanted to stick with. Still, it was a decent place to make a few bucks for awhile. There, I had a wonderful manager and great coworkers, folks who had more integrity than many of the corporate types I’ve encountered as an adult.

My Hot Topic “District Employee of the Month” pin.

I’m not entirely sure when exactly my Hot Topic location eventually went out of business, but back when the store was still doing great numbers, my coworkers and I would joke about how our company had a location in every Cincinnati-area mall except for the upscale one that was “too good” for the likes of us. Fifteen years later, though, the Kenwood Towne Centre holds one of the area’s last remaining Hot Topic stores, while ours and nearly all others closed as their respective malls declined.

The abandoned, decorative entrance of my former employer.

Aside from enjoying an employee discount on Red Hot Chili Peppers merchandise, I have many other memories from the Tri-County Mall. From shouting matches with overzealous rent-a-cops to the distinct smell of Cinnabon when you’d first walk in, or, that time my friends and I tried to skateboard down the corridors. The one story that always seems to come up in my personal lore, however, is one I don’t actually remember. So, I’ll let Nana tell it:

“I was babysitting you and I took you to the mall. We stopped in the pet store and I saw a poodle just like the poodle I had when I lived in Texas,”

…recalls my grandmother who doesn’t use the internet, but is absolutely adamant that I don’t use her real name on this website.

“So, I said: ‘Oh, Ronny, look at that…look at that white poodle…isn’t she cute? Would you like Nana to buy it for you?’”
“And you said: ‘No! Keep it in the mall!’”

To be fair, I was apparently two and have no recollection of this incident, but the dog never seemed to hold a grudge. After my rejection, Nana went home and convinced Papa to return with her to the mall’s pet store. “Lady” then became a family fixture at their house for the next 18 years.

My grandmother and I could go on for days about our individual memories of this particular mall or the other one just down the highway. And we’re certainly not the only folks. As I’ve gone on about before: the experience of malls was once ubiquitous, something spanning multiple generations. Now, however, the more common mall encounters seem to be of liminal spaces that are dried up and void of most tenants. A retail concept that’s fading into the cultural and economic dustbins of history. Generally, unless a traditional, indoor mall houses high-end retailers and becomes a destination—it’s going to struggle. These days, the American landscape is dotted with shopping centers that “used to be.” Tri-County Mall, situated in suburban Cincinnati at the intersection of two major interstates, found the same fate as so many others.

What set this mall apart in its final days, though, was what a friend of mine tactfully described as “sterilized abandonment.” Unlike many of the nation’s other dead malls that have become entertaining internet fixtures and examples of physical decay, Tri-County had been relatively well maintained. Sure, there were very few stores left, but the floors were regularly swept, the bathrooms were clean, and some effort had been put forward in hopes of securing a buyer or redevelopment deal. Eventually, some semblance of a plan would be inked and new owners announced an official closing date. So, I made one last pilgrimage.

I ended up stopping by the day before the final day, a humid May afternoon that was escaped thanks to the structure still blasting ice cold air conditioning. My Dad and I entered near the long closed Ruby Tuesday restaurant, the remaining decor reminding me of the time my uncle took me there before a Reds game (probably not long after I had rejected that poor dog).

Even in the mall’s final moments, the “sterilized abandonment” notion held. The place was still halfway fine looking even as employees of the few remaining stores hauled out racks of product. Although the place featured a now dated aesthetic, it was still a charming reminder of late 1980s/early 1990s design. All over, natural light poured in from the ceiling above and across the tiled floor.

The playground was still busy with families and the Tex-Mex restaurant, one of the few businesses sticking around for the planned redevelopment, had a line of hungry patrons waiting. Aside from those two spots, however, the mall was empty. You could hear your steps echo down the halls past the long gone Disney Store and into the void of what had once been the food court. Jumping into the car after one last look, Bruce Springsteen’s “My City of Ruins” came on the radio.

The mall’s marketing slogan emblazoned on the side of an escalator.

Unlike the nearby Forest Fair Mall/Cincinnati Mills/Cincinnati Mall/Forest Fair Village that I’ve covered on this website numerous times before, Tri-County’s history wasn’t as tumultuous. Aside from a steep downturn over the last decade, it had done well throughout the years. Generally one of the region’s “better” malls, it had continually evolved. Kristin from UniComm Productions has an EXCELLENT video on the place’s history that’s well worth a watch for anyone suffering from “mall-stalgia,” but the cliff notes of the shopping center’s history go like this:

Tri-County had originated as an open-air shopping center in 1960, one anchored by local department store chains Shillito’s and Pogue’s. A third anchor, Sears, arrived in 1967. Keeping in line with evolving mall trends, Tri-County would be renovated and fully enclosed in 1968.
As more malls were developed throughout the greater-Cincinnati area, Tri-County was constantly under the threat of competition. When the local municipality stopped development of another mall just across the interstate and less than a mile away, Tri-County announced expansion plans resulting in the 1990 addition of a second floor that nearly doubled the building’s footprint.
While the new millennium wore on into its teen years, local economic and shopping trends began shifting in what’s now become a familiar story in regards to the decline of both malls and other physical retail establishments. Tri-County wasn’t the only local casualty as nearby “big box” retailers like Circuit City and Best Buy also closed up shop. By the summer of 2021, the mall had become merely a shell of its former self. Sears was gone and the last remaining anchor, Macy’s, would also call it quits.

The former Shillito’s/Lazarus/Macy’s. Note the label scar left by the removal of an exterior sign in the top left. If this location seems familiar to Cincinnati locals, that’s because it was one of many.

Springdale, Ohio’s “Safety Town” taught young residents the rules of the road and was hosted at the mall. I am a proud graduate.

In early 2022, working in concert with the mall’s new ownership, the City of Springdale, Ohio approved a redevelopment plan. Two out-of-state investment firms plan to reimagine the area as “Artisan Village,” a mixed-use space that will eventually feature apartments, parks, community services, shopping, retail, dining, and more. Akin to the modern interpretation of mall known as a “lifestyle center,” only time will tell just how much of the alleged $1.3 Billion development actually comes to fruition or succeeds. Per the developer’s website, the name was chosen because…

“Springdale was made up of farmers, merchants, mechanics, blacksmiths, cobblers, tailors, inventors and manufacturers. It was a true Artisan Village, where local meant everything.”

I’m not entirely sure how much of that is history and how much of that is marketing speak, but with the first phase now underway, I prefer to think of the name as paying tribute to the former food court Subway’s “Sandwich Artists.”

I grew up with Tri-County as one of my local malls and for a short time recently, I even called Springdale home. It’s a great place with good people, fantastic food, nice parks, and even decent public transit connections. I’d love to see this development succeed as a long-term, sustainable piece of the surrounding community. However, as I’ve written about before, “lifestyle centers” can be just as transitory as the malls that pre-dated them. Additionally, Northern Cincinnati is no stranger to various suburban fiefdoms rapidly outfoxing each other with large-scale developments. Just last year, my story on Middletown’s Towne Mall up the highway noted how that community was promised a comparable renaissance for its dying mall property. Even closer to Tri-County, “Liberty Center” is a similar development with mixed results. If “Artisan Village” does pan out, maybe I’ll bring my dog to the proposed park.

I finally got one after telling my grandmother to leave hers in the mall 30 years ago.

“Egypt” the adopted Jack Kurt Russell Terrier at the Tri-County Mall’s former entrance, July 2022.

Note 1: I recently authored a piece for Belt Magazine’s “Cincinnati Neighborhood Guidebook” which documented Tri-County and another Cincinnati-area mall as they were in the Summer of 2021. The book is available for pre-order, comes out later this year, and features essays by several local writers.

Note 2: Thanks to Nate for coining the “sterilized abandonment” term.

Note 3: If you dig stories about dead malls, you’ll probably also enjoy these:

One more note: Shortly after posting this, I realized that the former Macy’s/Shillito’s looked familiar, so I went digging through my archives and found some shots from 2020…

…I forgot that I had once documented another abandoned former Shillito’s store on the other side of town. Digging this one back up, however, led to a story about the death of local department stores and another mall.

“Keep It in the Mall!” -or- The “Sterilized Abandonment” of Tri-County

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