Inside the eerie abandoned mall where Amazon will reportedly build a giant new facility
Rolling Acres Mall opened in 1975 to great fanfare as the premier shopping destination for the surrounding community.
At its height, the mall boasted more than 140 stores including Macy's, JCPenney, Target, and Sears.
Four decades later, the mall fell victim to years of falling customer traffic.
As the mall lost customers, several department stores abandoned their leases, and smaller tenants followed suit.
Rolling Acres never recovered ...
... and it lost its last store tenant in 2013.
As business slowed, the building became a target for criminal activity.
A homeless man was sentenced to a year in prison for living inside a vacant store in 2007.
Another man was electrocuted trying to steal copper wire from the mall in 2011.
Source: Cleveland.com
That same year, the body of an apparent murder victim was found behind the shopping center.
Source: Cleveland.com
Even vacant, the mall remained a safety concern.
The mayor of Akron instructed residents in 2016 to "stay clear of the area."
The outside of the mall decayed along with the inside. Weeds sprouted up between cracks in the parking lot.
This building originally opened in 1978 as an O'Neil's department store.
In 2006 it became a Macy's, which shut down just two years later.
This cinema was added to the mall around 1977.
Storage of America at one point took over this space, which was formerly occupied by Target.
This truck unloading center also belonged to Target.
This was originally the now-defunct Montgomery Ward department store before it closed in 1986. The store became Dillard's in 1992. In 1997, it became a Clearance Center.
The city began the process of demolishing the rotting shopping center in 2016.
Years after it was abandoned, the Rolling Acres site could now become home to a brand-new Amazon facility.
The warehouse could bring hundreds of jobs to the area.
It could also serve to symbolize a new era of retail dominated by Amazon and other e-commerce giants after the retail apocalypse wiped out hundreds of shopping malls.
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