Westgate Mall

Westgate, formerly Westgate Center and Westgate Mall was a one-level shopping mall 11.4 miles (18.3 km) northeast of downtown Cleveland, Ohio, between West 210th Street, Center Ridge Road and Linden Road in Fairview Park, a suburb of Cleveland. The mall had two anchors which were Dillard's Home Store and Kohl's.
== Old Power Center ==
Westgate Mall originally opened up as a power center named Westgate Center which opened on February 2, 1954. It's original tenants included two anchors which were a 3-level Halle's, and a 2-level Federal, other tenants included S.S. Kresge, Gray Drug, Winkelman's, Turney Hardware, Stouffer's, Kroger and Pick-N-Pay. Federal relocated out of the complex to a 1-level freestanding space in August 1961. The former Federal space was expanded and converted into a Higbee's in October 1961.
== Enclosed Mall ==
In August 1969, the Westgate Center was enclosed and the mall was renamed to Westgate Mall. During the same year, the Federal store had closed and replaced by Spartan-Atlantic in August 1970 and lasted four years before closing in 1974. In 1970, Kroger had closed and was replaced with a four-screen General Cinema theater. Also in 1974, Higbee's Home Store opened in the space in October 1974. In 1982, Halle's was closed due to the chain going out of business. In June 1986, the 4-screen General Cinema closed and was replaced with a 6-screen General Cinema theater that was outside of the mall. Also in 1986, Westgate Mall was undergoing a major renovation, entrances were rebuilt and the Promenade Food Court installed in part of the old 4-screen General Cinema space. These improvements were done by the Richard E. Jacobs Group who owned the mall at the time, they also owned the Euclid Square Mall in Euclid. In June 1992, the former Halle's space was converted into Horne's, however Horne's would only last a month before it was converted into Dillard's Women, the former Higbee's space was converted into Dillard's Men's & Children.
== Decline ==
Decline to the Westgate Mall began in the mid-1990s as there were other bigger malls in the Cleveland area with more shopping options such as Parmatown Mall in Parma, Randall Park Mall in North Randall, SouthPark Mall in Strongsville, Beachwood Place in Beachwood, Richmond Town Square in Richmond Heights, Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, Great Lakes Mall in Mentor and Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted. all of which were bigger which led to tenants inside Westgate Mall relocating to those malls or other shopping centers in the Cleveland area. In 1996, a 1-level Kohl's store opened as a third anchor to the mall as an attempt to revive the mall, however it didn't work. By 2004, the end was near for the mall. In April 2004, Dillard's converted the former Halle's and Higbee's space into one creating a Dillard's Home Store, however by March 2005, it was closed down. In January 2006, the movie theater at Westgate Mall was shut down. In January 2007, the mall was closed down.
== New Power Center ==
In February 2007. the mall was completely demolished except for the Kohl's space as the first plans for the new power center on the land, renaming the complex from Westgate Mall to just Westgate. On July 25, 2007, a new Target store opened with then a Lowe's opening at Westgate in November. The property was also sold to Centro Property Group in February 2007 with then being sold to R.H. Johnson Company in July 2021.
Category:Malls in the United States
Category:Malls in Ohio
Category:Cleveland Area Malls
Category:Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Category:Malls that opened in 1969
Category:Former Higbee's-anchored Malls
Category:Former Halle's-anchored Malls
Category:Former Dillard's-anchored Malls
Category:Richard E. Jacobs
Category:Former Malls