Westland Mall

As a child of the 1980’s, I recall many memories at the Huntington Mall in Barboursville, West Virginia. With it’s beige floor tiles, fountains, wooden oak benches and retro shops, you could spend hours exploring. Shops like the San Francisco Music Box Company, Hickory Farms and Radio Shack were my mainstays. Of course, the Huntington Mall sucked the shopping experience from downtown Huntington into a suburban wasteland, surrounded not by historic buildings but by a sea of asphalt.

The Westland Mall in Columbus, Ohio was similar. Built upon the promise of open-air shopping in suburbia, the mall boasted three anchors and over 40 stores, from stores that peddled drapes to sewing equipment and eccentric clothing.The mall was one of four directionally-named shopping centers in the metropolitan area built in the same time period: Westland, Northland, Eastland and Southland. Westland was later enclosed in the early 1980’s.

But the Westland Mall evoked a similar feeling to the Huntington Mall that I remembered as a child. By 2011, Westland was on its deathbed, but it’s interior was simply vintage, having never been renovated after it’s enclosure. Brown tiles adorned the floor, dark-tinted lights were fastened on the pillars and remnants of stores long gone lined the concourse. There was not a soul inside and for the 30 minutes I walked around, all I could hear was the water dripping from the deteriorated ceiling.



Several weeks ago, I revisited Westland Mall, only to find it practically boarded up and abandoned. The only tenants that remained were Staples and Sears, both of who have no entrances to the concourse. Boarded up windows cover panes of broken glass at the entrances to the concourse. Inside, sad and pathetic signs on whiteboard tell of a mall with no ATM and restroom facilities. Outside, transformers that once fed into the course lay in pieces, stripped of any valuable metal.


Front entrance in 2011










Front entrance in 2014


Sears






Sears Auto Center


JC Penny






Lazarus and later Macy's











I have posted over 60 historical photos of Westland Mall, but since reposting them here would be a nightmare, I have put a sample of what the shopping center once was.





















Over 100 photos of Westland, and a complete history, at http://abandonedon...ers/westland-mall/

Were you able to get inside the boarded up section? I couldn't really tell from the photos because it looked abandoned as fuck when it was still open haha. Nice work and excellent write up!

A rare Plymouth Cricket in one of the parking lot pictures.

Posted by JasonJacksonPhoto Were you able to get inside the boarded up section? I couldn't really tell from the photos because it looked abandoned as fuck when it was still open haha. Nice work and excellent write up!

Not in 2014 - but in 2011 it was still open.