Former Bonwit Teller / Burlington - a photo on Flickriver

            The ceiling in this store seems different for a Burlington Coat Factory store. Would this happen to be from the store's Bonwit Teller days in the early 1990s? Part of the store has an open ceiling (background of the shot), another part (close to the camera), has an open ceiling but with braces like there was once a drop ceiling, and another section has a drop ceiling that is lower (left side of shot). I am not familiar with Bonwit Teller, they went out of business before I was born. Is anybody here familiar with them?

The Forest Fair Mall was opened in 1989 and originally featured Bigg's Hypermarket, Bonwit Teller, B. Altman, Elder-Beerman, Parisian, and Sakowitz as anchor stores. By the early 2000s, all of the anchor stores original to the mall had closed except for Bigg's Hypermarket. 

The mall underwent two major renovations since its debut. One was done in the early 1990s to make the mall more of a discount-based mall and cost $8 Million.  Mills later took over the mall and spent nearly $70 million renovating the struggling mall into Cincinnati Mills, which opened in 2004. Bass Pro Shops, Showcase Cinemas, Kohl's, and Burlington Coat Factory later moved into the mall to replace the original anchor stores.  Mills was later taken over by Simon Malls. After struggling to keep the mall filled, Simon sold the mall off. The name was changed to Cincinnati Mall in 2009. The mall reportedly changed its name to Forest Fair Village in 2013 but never officially changed any of the exterior or interior signs saying "Cincinnati Mall". 

This mall is very modern for a dead mall. I guess it goes to show that some malls just can't be saved no matter how much money is poured into them. There are two other major malls within several miles of this one that were built earlier with more stable (in the long run) anchor stores like Sears and JCPenney. This mall was also built off an exit that didn't get nearly the development as around the area's other malls. The mall still seems most commonly refered to as Cincinnati Mills. Today, this nearly 2,000,000 square foot mall has only Kohl's, Bass Pro Shops (leaving later in 2015), and Babies R Us as anchor stores. The interior of the mall is (by my estimate) about 95% empty.

Forest Fair Mall / Cincinnati Mills / Cincinnati Mall - Cincinnati Mills Drive - Forest Park, Ohio

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Taken in: United States / Ohio (show map)

Taken on: July 18, 2015

Tags:

Cincinnati

Forest Park

America

USA

2015

Retail

Stores

Dead

Mall

Dead Mall

Forest Fair Mall

Cincinnati Mills

Cincinnati Mall

Forest Fair Village « less

Sets appears in: • Photostream Randomized • My Favorite Photos more » • Simply Abandoned • Cincinnati Mall « less

Groups appears in: • Abandoned • Burlington Coat Factory more » • flickr (unofficial) « less

Camera: Panasonic DMC-ZS19, f/3.3, 1/10 sec, 4.3mm, ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Panasonic DMC-ZS19
Aperture:	f/3.3
Exposure Time:	0.1 sec (1/10)
Focal Length:	4.3mm
ISO:	400
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Spot
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	High gain up
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.7.1 (Windows)
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