My uncle managed the Westgate Mall in Akron for 11 years and what he said about the food court changed how I see all these dead malls

Alice Walker · 2026-10-10T03:45:05.255123+00:00

I was at my uncle's place for his 60th birthday and we got to talking about the malls I photograph on weekends. He managed Westgate Mall in Akron from 1989 to 2000, before it got torn down in 2012, and I always assumed these places died because of online shopping. He laughed and said that was maybe the last 10 percent of it. He told me the real killer started in the late 90s when anchor stores figured out they could sell the land under their own buildings and split, leaving the rest of the mall with no traffic and huge shared costs. He said Westgate lost 40 percent of its foot traffic in 8 months after two anchors pulled out, and the food court was the first thing to go because those little guys ran on borrowed money and could not hang on. I had never once thought about who actually owns the parking lot or the hallways, turns out it is a mess of different owners, and that is why so many of these places just sit there rotting instead of being redeveloped. He also said the mall was never really about shopping for a lot of people, it was the only free place in town to just be a teenager. So now when I walk through one of these dead food courts with the fake plants still bolted to the floor, I think about the rent checks and the lawsuits instead of just Amazon. Does anyone else dig into the actual ownership records before you explore a spot, or am I the only nerd doing that?

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My uncle managed the Westgate Mall in Akron for 11 years and what he said about the food court changed how I see all these dead malls | Dead Mall Explorers - Librear