The Retail Wasteland that is Dayton, Ohio

Retail_247

We've all seen abandoned stores, a lot of us have probably seen photos of abandoned malls or shopping plaza's (maybe you've even seen one in person), but what about an entire portion of a town that's filled with abandoned retail and retail history?

Well, believe it or not, that does exist, and it's in Dayton, Ohio.

Here's the map of what we're in for today.

Let's start off with the Consumer Square plaza:

This Consumer Square Plaza has exactly zero open tenants.

Most of the following photos are from 2016.

In between the anchor tenants were smaller tenants

Some of which left their fixtures behind

If I had to take a guess I'd have to assume that this was a Blockbuster Video.

More left behind fixtures from a different tenant.

Former Shoe Carnival

One of the last open tenants.

This plaza is split up into two different sections by the awkwardly placed piece of forest land for some reason. If I had to make a guess, there was a store here which was demolished and this was put here to make it look better?

Cub Foods closed in 2013.

I have no idea what this tenant was

Office Depot somehow remained open up until 2020. I'm assuming they were the last anchor tenant in the entire plaza to remain open.

This sign says a lot. Not just about the plaza, but about the state of Office Depot themselves. Considering the fact that they used both the Office Depot and Office Max logos on the sign, I don't think this sign was made just for this store alone.

Here's the sign for the plaza, which was put in the back, behind all of the store fronts, for some reason?

Maybe that store that I talked about at the beginning was a Blockbuster...

It would appear that construction work would start to get done on the plaza in 2019.

Another sign, which was in front of all the stores (where it should be)

Cub Foods in 2021

A little further up the street is yet another sign for the plaza. Believe it or not, this photo was taken in 2021. Yes, the Cub Foods sign is still up despite closing 8 years before.

Behind that sign is what appears to be a former Pier 1 Imports.

It would also appear that this store location closed before the whole chain called it quits, with the building still being vacant in 2007.

The back of Cub Foods when it was still open (2011)

Well that about does it for the Consumer Square Plaza. Moving on, but not that far, only right next door.

Right next to the plaza is this stand alone UHaul...

...Which was originally a Walmart

Funny enough, this Walmart competed with both Kmart & Target, all of which, were pretty much across the street from each other, but yet, Walmart was the first to go, closing in 2007. (They might have moved to a supercenter but I'm not exactly sure)

Across from Walmart is yet another shopping center, with only 4 tenants. All of which, being anchors. The tenants include; Kmart, Sun Super Saving Centers, Elder Beerman "Furniture Super Store", and Lowe's, which is the only store in the center that's still open.

Photo of Kmart when it was still open (2011)

After Kmart closed (2019)

Kmart had their entire sign frame removed

Their garden center removed and boarded up with wood

And the entrance completely removed and walled off (why didn't they do that with the garden center?)

Next to Kmart was SUN Super Savings Centers, a chain of electronics stores that went out of business in 1998. The original building design from SUN is still in-tact.

SUN labelscar which has seen been painted over. (2015)

Elder Beerman Furniture Super Store. Closed 2009

Building has since been repainted and reused.

Across from the former Walmart contains a shopping center with a Kmart, but what's that across the street from Kmart, specifically to the left side of the building?

That's right, a Target store.

With Walmart & Kmart gone, Target would be the only discount department store left in the area. Target would reap in the benefits of having more customers and become the most popular discounter in the area simply because they're are no other discounters.

...Or at least one would think so...

Even with Walmart & Kmart gone, and with no other discount store chains in the area, and virtually no competition, Target still couldn't make it. They closed in 2014, one year after the Kmart across the street, and 7 years after the Walmart a little further down the road.

I can't stress enough how close these stores were to each other. Yet, in the end, nobody really won the battle.

Anyway, back onto the main topic,

The Target has since had a similar fate as the Walmart and was later converted into a storage facility.

Going a little further up the road from Target at the intersection of Salem Ave & Shiloh Springs Rd,

You'll find a Home Depot. Which (along with the Lowe's down the road) is surprisingly still open.

You'll also find a big empty lot

Let me explain what this empty lot is. In 1966, the Salem Mall was built here. It was your large typical indoor shopping mall. The mall was eventually considered a dead mall and was permanently closed by 2005. A year later in 2006, the mall was demolished and nothing was ever built upon the former site. Original anchors for the mall were Rike's, JCPenney, and Sears. Rike's was rebranded as Shillito-Rike's and was later converted into a Lazarus department store, which closed before the Macy's acquisition.

What was once the Salem Mall, as seen from the back of Home Depot.

Parking lot fixture leftover from the original days of the former mall.

If your interested in what the mall used to look like, check out this website that contains; Images of the Dayton Mall when it was still open from local news website Dayton Daily News

The former Rike's/Shillito-Rikes/Lazarus space and the former JCPenney store were torn down along with the mall.

The Sears however...

The Sears store lived on

Despite the fact that the Salem Mall closed in 2005 and was torn down in 2006, Sears still didn't see a reason to close. They were separated from the mall and spared demolition.

Sears somehow lasted until 2013.

Former Sears mall entrance

Gotta apricate that old school architecture, though

I used this photo just to show the vintage light fixture, but I also noticed what appears to be a garden center?

Before

After

The building has since been repainted with these weird shades of Blue & Green for some reason

Moving on from that a little further up the street is this little shopping center:

The Best Buy & Big Lots was originally home to Rink's (also known as Rink's Bargain City), a regional chain of discount department stores that went out of business in the 80's (or possibly the late 70's)

Big Lots is still open

Best Buy on the other hand, is not

They closed in 2012

All of the other stores next to the Big Lots appear to still be open and operating. (Check out that old Jo-Ann Fabrics sign)

In the parking lot there's also what appears to be a former Pizza Hut. Unlike the Best Buy however the building isn't abandoned. A local Mexican restaurant is currently operating in the old building.

Across from the Big Lots plaza is some more retail!

...Which of course is abandoned...

This building here with the glass front to the right of the center originally started out life as a Gold Circle discount department store. After Gold Circle bit the dust in 1988, the building would later be taken up by Value City, a similar chain of department stores (and furniture stores too but this was a department store location). They would remodel the building and give it the current look and glass front that is has.

After Value City went the way of Gold Circle in 2008, the building would, yet again, find another new tenant, which this time would prove to be Burlington Coat Factory.

As history would repeat itself for the third time, however, Burlington would close this location in 2019. It has sat vacant ever since

Next to the former Burlington space sits two other tenants, Dollar General (which has apparently since closed?)

If your interested in retail history like I am (or your just from the area), you know exactly what this building originally was, Circuit City

Here's a photo of the entire center from 2007. Not only can you see what the Value City store looked like when it was still open, you can also see that the Circuit City was still abandoned. Circuit City didn't go out of business until 2009, and since this photo is from 2007, Circuit City must have closed this store before they went out of business entirely.

A little further up the street is an abandoned "Cash Land" in what is obviously a former restaurant building of some sort

Going back to Shiloh Springs Rd, right behind the Big Lots / Former Best Buy is this building

This building here used to be Builders Square, a chain of big box hardware stores similar to Home Depot or Lowe's. Builders Square went out of business in 1999 and this building has since been taken up by Allen Refrigeration. 

The parking lot is in pretty bad shape, it appears to be cracking with grass starting to take it over.

Next to the builders square parking lot is more abandoned retail (big surprise, I know). I have no idea what these businesses were but if I had to make a guess I'd say local ones.

In between the former Sears & The former Best Buy is a Speedway gas station (which is somehow still open), and a transit / transpiration center.

The transpiration center used to be this

I have no idea what this was but whatever is was its gone now.

Going down Salem Ave (further down the Big Lots / Best Buy plaza), is Salem Plaza

Salem plaza is a niche little plaza with local tenants. The plaza seems to have a lot of open tenants which is obviously uncommon for the area.

Next to Salem plaza is Gold Rush, Jewelers, abandoned store & a local electronics shop

Close up on the Gold Rush building. Unique looking building isn't it? It kind of stands out

Close up in the other two buildings. I have no idea what the building on the left was but I have a suspicion that the tech shop on the right was once an old Dunkin' Donuts.

And next to that is a former Family Dollar & a road leading to more buildings.

Behind the former Family Dollar is Mensea Metal (one of very few still operating businesses in the area), and a storage place (because of course it is), being the 3rd self storage unit in the area. I don't know what the storage unit originally was.

Also on Salem Ave is a former Payless Shoesource

The store somehow lasted until the entire company went under in 2019.

Next to Payless is a plaza which, like the Salem Plaza, has all local tenants and is still mostly filled

The same thing could be said about the plaza across the street.

And next to that plaza is yet another plaza

Something about this plaza intrigues me. It looks like it was originally a discount department store that was subdivided into a plaza. Looks like an old Grant's (W.T. Grant) or a Spartan discount store but honestly I have no clue what this originally was.

Well, it looks like we've finally reached the end of the retail wasteland known as Dayton, Ohio. Thanks for taking this tour with me, and thanks for reading :).

All images are from Google Maps & Google Street View. I take zero credit for any of these photos.