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Yet another rebirth for Forest Fair Mall

By Edmund Mander

Cincinnati’s Forest Fair Mall, teetering on the edge of disaster for most of its 12 years of existence, is looking for a fresh start. And while this is not the first “new start’’ for Forest Fair, observers are a lot more sanguine about the 1.8 million-square-foot megamall’s prospects for success this time. The mall, famous over the years for hemorrhaging anchors, in-line tenants and customers, is turning itself into an outlet and value retail center that, for the first time in its existence, will offer tenants with powerful local appeal, according to its new owners, Miami-based Gator Investments, and its leasing agent, Glimcher Realty Trust.

Next month, a Bass Pro Outdoor World will open, and in March it will be joined by an Off-5th Saks Fifth Avenue Outlet. Other tenants scheduled to open in November include Media Play and Burlington Coat Factory. National Amusements is building a multiscreen cinema with stadium seating on a new third level, and the center also will retain its existing second-run movie theater.

A value center makes sense for this area, said Lori Busse, Forest Fair’s marketing director.

“Historically what we’ve seen is that the value tenants are what this market is interested in. Forest Fair will not only be a place to shop, it also will be a place to come enjoy.”

Forest Fair Mall, located off Interstate 275 in Forest Park, has had a rough ride. Even as it opened, observers questioned whether a working-class neighborhood was the right location for an upscale mall. They also criticized its Australian-based development firm, L.J. Hooker Corp., headed by George Herscu, for buying up and installing three anchors — B. Altman, Bonwit Teller, and Sakowitz & Co. — all of which were new and untested in this market. They were later joined by Parisian, which at the time also was partly owned by Hooker.

Buying anchors to stock a mall raised a few eyebrows, but Herscu wasn’t fazed.

“If I’m successful, everyone will say, ‘Oh, what a great guy.’ And if I don’t succeed, they’ll say, ‘What a damn fool,’” Herscu told The Cincinnati Enquirer in February 1989, rejecting criticism about his unorthodox approach to shopping center development.

The verdict came quickly: With Hooker weighed down by enormous debt from both the department stores’ purchase and the mall development cost — a $50 million cost overrun brought Forest Fair’s development cost to $250 million — lenders withdrew their support. Three months after Forest Fair’s March 1989 opening, the center was up for sale, and later that summer, Herscu, L.J. Hooker and the company’s three department stores, were in bankruptcy.

In October 1990, Bonwit Teller closed, followed by B. Altman and Sakowitz a month later. And in December of that year, a judge in Australia sentenced Herscu to five years in jail for bribing a cabinet minister.

But the mall limped on. In January, 1991, Forest Fair’s five lenders formed themselves into FFM Limited Partnership and took Forest Fair over, hiring a team of seasoned retail veterans to run it, including former JMB/Federated and Campeau Development Chairman John P. Boorn (today he is chairman and chief executive at Madison Marquette, the Cincinnati-based development firm); former Center Cos. Chairman Michael F. Kelly; and Stanley Eichelbaum, SCMD, president of Cincinnati-based Marketing Developments, an international retail development consulting firm.

But for all its collective experience, the team had its work cut out for it: Almost half the mall was vacant, and other nearby centers were snatching up tenants and customers. Tri-County Mall, less than four miles away, was completing an $80 million renovation and expansion, adding a second level, 110 new stores and a fourth anchor.

Forest Fair was caught in a trap. Upscale Parisian was hardly appropriate for its surrounding primary market area. And even though the mall did have a biggs hypermarket, a 157,500-square-foot Elder-Beerman department store and a 40,000-square-foot entertainment center operated by Time Out Amusements, it badly needed more moderately priced anchors. But the best candidates were already spoken for, with Lazarus, J.C. Penney and Sears already well represented in the Cincinnati area.

The new team in May 1992 divided Forest Fair up into four zones, clustering the tenants under four retail themes: fashion, lifestyle, value and entertainment. The following year saw the completion of an $8 million expansion, with a new restaurant and bar complex in the former Bonwit Teller space. A $25 million renovation in 1994 included the construction of a movie theater and the arrival of Kohl’s in the former B. Altman store.

Forest Fair’s new incarnation as an entertainment destination, however, still failed to lift the mall’s fortunes for long, and in April 1996 it was sold to Gator.

Now Gator and Glimcher are working to have Forest Fair do something it has never done before: Fill a niche.

“Cincinnati is a market that does not have a Mills-type project,” said Eichelbaum, referring to The Mills Corp.’s formula for mixing factory outlets with high-profile entertainment tenants.

The formula could work, finally overcoming Forest Fair’s double handicap of being squeezed between two other malls in a moderate-income location. The property’s switch from conventional mall to value center has become even more imperative, with plans announced for more regional malls in the area. The Rouse Co., Columbia, Md., and Taubman Centers Inc. of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., both have unveiled plans for malls in the northern Cincinnati market. While observers say only one of the projects will likely go ahead — the sites lie just a few miles apart — either one could well claim an existing area mall, they say.

Factors in the area that might finally be working in Forest Fair’s favor include that the local market’s wealth has increased substantially in the past decade, Eichelbaum noted. The median household income in a five-mile radius of the mall rose to $50,285 in 1998 from $36,921, according to Claritas, the Arlington, Va., market research firm, and the population of that area has increased from 151,520 to 157,875.

However, a key to Forest Fair’s success will be finding value tenants for the rest of its vacant space, Eichelbaum said.

Other tenants, like Bass Pro and Saks, will increase its reach substantially, attracting shoppers from as far away as 150 miles.

Gator and Glimcher also are shifting the focus of the mall’s entertainment offerings, and distributing them throughout the center rather than having them all in one place. The Time Out area, which had become a teen-age hangout, will market itself to children under 12.

“The plan is to mix the entertainment with the retail throughout the mall,” Busse said. One part of the entertainment mix, however, is being kept separate: The Bourbon Street nightclub area is being renamed Metropolis, and will comprise three music venues offering country music, top 40 and “techno” music.

The mall’s name also is changing slightly: It will be known as Forest Fair Fashions, she said. Gator did not opt for a more radical name change, despite its somewhat negative history. “We don’t want to rename the mall because it is very well known in the Cincinnati area.”

Instead, the new owner is determined to change the substance of the mall — and its reputation.