Three years after Chapel Hill Mall closed its doors for good, a design production company from California has helped give the space new life.
AKRON, Ohio — Nearly three years after being closed, the doors of an abandoned mall in Akron have reopened.
Retail design production company OnQ Inc., headquartered in California, has found a new purpose for a portion of the old Chapel Hill Mall.
“We’ve brought life back to this mall,” Paul Chapuis, founder and CEO of OnQ, said Wednesday at the company’s official ribbon-cutting ceremony that was attended by Akron Mayor Shammas Malik.
Quality control manager Lara Bartow is from Ravenna and was once a shopper at Chapel Hill Mall. She has many fond memories.
“It smelled like fountain. … It smelled very clean,” Bartow recalled. “It was clean, beautiful, sparkling, would reflect on that mural (that still exists where the main drag of the mall used to be), which …