History of Midway Mall

Midway Mall is a earlier example of the modern shopping mall. Built in 1966 it hosted 6 anchor stores and 120 businesses at it’s peak, across the whole mall it is one floor a common feature of early shopping malls. The mall was built by the Richard E Jacobs Company and opened on September 22nd, 1966. A Extension to the Mall was part of the 1990 Renovation of the Mall which saw a new Food Court addition and more stores. Midway Mall saw a huge downturn in stores throughout the late 2000’s into the 2010’s as it slowly but surely lost all of its Anchor Tenants. The first one to go was Dillard’s in 2007 followed by Macy’s in 2016, Sears in 2017, JCPenney in 2019, and Best Buy in 2020. This left the only semi Anchor Stores as Dunham’s Sports and Johnny K’s Power Sports. The loss of Anchor Stores can be blamed on the Retail Apocalypse of the 2010’s as Online Shopping took the life out of many businesses across the US. Midway Mall being in a community without a Major City (The Closest being Elyria with only 52,000 People) suffered early closings as Big Chain Stores focused on their own Finances over the people in the communities. Midway Mall remains the only Mall in Lorain County and has been planned to turn the Mall into a Industrial Park which was decided between 2023 and 2024. The Mall doesn’t have a set closing date but the future for the Mall is not good and many locals fear their local mall will become not much more then just faded memories.