Great Northern Mall (Ohio)

Great Northern Mall, is a single-level enclosed shopping mall in North Olmsted, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Its anchor stores are Dick's, Dillard's, J. C. Penney, and Macy's.
== History ==
Originally, a small outdoor shopping center was opened by Saul Biskind in 1958 on what was a field of strawberries. The plaza contained a Sears (west end), F. W. Woolworth Company (center west), and a Pick-N-Pay grocery store (east end), along with a small-scale JCPenney and other stores. A freestanding May Company Cleveland store was built to the east of the original plaza in 1965.
The enclosed mall was opened in 1976 and attached to the east end of the existing May Company building. It featured new, larger JCPenney and Sears stores. In 1980, Hexalon Real Estate—an affiliate of what is now Unibail-Rodamco—became an investor in the mall. The 1980s saw the opening of the Plaza South attached to the original strip (now renamed the Plaza) and the 1987 addition of the award-winning South Court to the mall. Additionally, 2 mid-level hotels and several office facilities, such as Corporate Center and Technology Park, were built proximal to the retail facilities. These served to feed customers into the Mall and Plazas, as did the strategic location near Lorain Road, Brookpark Road, Great Northern Boulevard, and Interstate 480.
In 1991, Hexalon bought out the remaining Biskind stake in the mall and undertook a significant upgrade and remodel in 1992. It hired The Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation as its management company until 2000, when Rodamco's Urban Shopping Centers assumed management. The Biskind family, which had retained the Plazas, eventually sold them to DDR Corp. in 1997.
May Company Cleveland was renamed Kaufmann's in 1993, and became Macy's in 2006. The Westfield Group acquired the shopping center in early 2002, and renamed it "Westfield Shoppingtown Great Northern." Dillard's was added in April 2004, expanding the South Court into a full-fledged new wing. Westfield dropped "Shoppingtown" from the mall's name in June 2005, around the time that a newly built 84,000 square foot Dick's Sporting Goods opened.
The original food court, which had been located between Sears and JCPenney, was moved adjacent to Dick's in 2011. In March 2013, construction began at site of the original food court for a 10-screen Regal Entertainment Group movie theater, three new restaurants, and extra renovations; this addition was completed by December of that year. The mall was sold to Starwood Retail Partners, a subsidiary of Starwood Capital Group, in the midst of construction.
On July 1, 2020, Sears announced the closure of the Great Northern Mall location, which closed that August. As of 2022, a local group of luxury car dealers is considering the former Sears to merge all of its operations together.
In March 2020, it was reported that owner, Starwood Retail Partners, defaulted on a ₪900 million (approximately $250 million) in Israeli bond loans and was forced to restructure and divest their "Starwood West" package of malls, including Great Northern. The top bidder on the package was a joint venture of Golden East Investors and Pacific Retail Capital Partners. The venture, as agreed to by Starwood's senior trustees, is designed to resolve debts and stabilize assets, ending in a potential sale to Pacific Retail or a similar company. 
Pacific Retail subsequently took over management from Jones Lang LaSalle (who Starwood had placed over the mall when their financial troubles began) in December 2020
== Gallery ==
=== Videos ===
File:A NON DEAD MALL Great Northen Mall in North Olmsted, Ohio|Mall Tour
File:Golden Kone Hydraulic Elevator At Dillard’s Great Northern Mall In North Olmsted, OH|The Dillard's Elevator
File:Schindler HT Hydraulic Elevator At Dick’s Sporting Goods Great Northern Mall In North Olmsted, OH|The Dick's Sporting Goods Elevator
File:Sears Tour Great Northern Mall North Olmsted Ohio The last Sears in the state of Ohio|Sears Tour
File:Dover Hydraulic Elevator @ Sears & Roebuck Great Northern Mall North Olmsted Ohio|The Sears Elevator
Category:Malls in Ohio
Category:Malls in the United States
Category:Shopping Malls
Category:Starwood Capital Group Malls
Category:Malls that opened in 1976
Category:Multi-Level Malls
Category:Former Westfield Malls
Category:Former Kaufmann's-anchored Malls
Category:Macy's-anchored Malls
Category:Former Sears-anchored Malls
Category:JCPenney-anchored Malls
Category:Dillard's-anchored Malls
Category:Dick's-anchored Malls
Category:Regal Cinemas-anchored Malls
Category:Pacific Retail Capital Partners Malls
Category:Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Category:Cleveland Area Malls