'We're part of revitalizing retail': Former Chapel Hill Mall gets second life
Standing in the space that used to be Chapel Hill Mall’s JCPenney, Adam Berkley recalled that he and his now-wife’s first date 30 years ago was to see “Grumpy Old Men” at the mall’s General Cinema.
“That's hilarious that you remember that,” his colleague, Greg Brumbaugh, said of the movie name drop.
Both of them once worked in the former mall’s Sears.
Now, Berkley is general manager and Brumbaugh is senior director of production at OnQ Solutions, a retail display manufacturer with a roughly decade-long presence in Akron. In December, OnQ signed a lease for more than 130,000 square feet between two floors of the former mall.
The former mall has been revitalized into a site for new job creation and business activity. About 715,000 square feet − the bulk of the space − is being leased by Industrial Commercial Properties (ICP) to OnQ and three other tenants under the name Chapel Hill Business Park.
It's been so successful that ICP is looking to build even more space to rent out.
Meanwhile, next door is the former Macy’s, now owned and operated by Storage of America.
ICP purchased the majority of the mall in 2021 when there were still a handful of stores left and the business owners were looking to get out of their leases, said Michelle Nicholson, ICP's director of sales and leasing.
Not long ago, the site was starting to look “like a motorcycle test track” where people were “doing fishtails in the parking lot,” said Chris Salata, chief operating officer of ICP.
ICP’s renovation of the 2000 Brittain Road building included tearing out old walls, installing new LED lights and painting the interior and exterior, Salata said. Exterior updates include landscaping near the building.
During an April visit from a Beacon Journal reporter, employees and temp workers contracted with OnQ, the business park's most recent tenant, were in the process of unpacking and repacking boxes and inventorying display parts. Between their duties overseeing workflow and the business’s months-long move into the space, Berkley and Brumbaugh relayed other fond memories.
“There was a lot to do here back in the day − plenty of stores to hit, along with the food court,” Berkley said. “So, as a kid, you just hung out and kind of did what you wanted to do with your friends back then.”
OnQ creates displays for products, including Apple and Tesla, in brick-and-mortar retail stores such as Walmart, Costco and Best Buy, said founder and CEO Paul Chapuis.
The business is consolidating production, warehouse storage, shipping and offices from sites off Romig Road and Flora Avenue in Akron to Chapel Hill, Brumbaugh said.
Recalling visiting Santa Claus and Archie the Snowman as a child, Brumbaugh said: “It's exciting to come back and turn it into something else."
More: Goodbye, Chapel Hill Mall. Hello, Chapel Hill Business Park. A look inside the former mall
Industrial Commercial Property’s work and plans at mall site
Through multiple 2021 property purchases from Kohan Real Estate Investment Group and Sears, ICP purchased more than 700,000 square feet of the onetime Chapel Hill Mall, Salata said.
The tenants in the now-Chapel Hill Business Park have already created about 200 new jobs, Nicholson said.
Salata said he believes the jobs and investment into building business are “only going to strengthen the surrounding, other development projects.”
Salata declined to share purchase totals for the transactions.
Records from the Summit County Fiscal Office show a $2.1 million October 2020 sale of one parcel at 2000 Brittain Road from Seritage SRC Finance LLC to Akron 2000 Brittain Road LLC. The Ohio Secretary of State's Office also has a business on file with the name ICP Akron 2000 Brittain Road LLC that has the same statutory agent as Akron 2000 Brittain Road LLC.
Summit County Fiscal Office records also show a $7 million March 2021 sale of two parcels at that address from Chapel Hill Mall Realty Holding LLC to Akron Chapel Hill LLC. Akron Chapel Hill LLC has the same statutory agent listed with the Secretary of State's Office as Akron 2000 Brittain Road LLC and ICP Akron 2000 Brittain Road LLC.
The areas that were once the food court, shared walkways, small retail stores, JCPenney and Sears all fall under ICP’s ownership, as does the building that was formerly the Sears Auto Center.
OnQ Solutions investing in former Chapel Hill Mall
As OnQ puts more than $2 million in renovations into its leased space, Chapuis said: “The fact that we're going to now be doing production in the main atrium is pretty cool — like, we’re part of revitalizing retail.”
OnQ plans to stay at Chapel Hill Business Park long term, Chapuis said.
More than half of OnQ’s workforce — roughly 55 out of 100 employees — will operate at the new site, Chapuis said. Many of them will come from the Romig Road space, while a handful will pick up and move from OnQ’s Hayward, California (Bay Area) location. And the company will make some new hires, most of whom will be working out of the business park, he said.
Touching on the spirit and character of the former mall, Chapuis said OnQ is retaining Cleveland artist Brian J. Plesmid's 218-by-13-foot mural, "The Four Seasons."
The mural, previously part of a common area in the mall but now strictly in OnQ's space, will tower over some of the manufacturer's offices and its production, Brumbaugh said.
ICP touched up the mural with white paint. Salata said the mural was just one aspect of the structure that was starting to look dated.
“When you think about industrial [manufacturers] in 2024, most of them are very clean — they're antiseptic,” Salata said, adding that tenants tend to prefer “polished concrete floors, bright white paint, LED lights.”
Who are the other tenants at Chapel Hill Business Park?
Aside from OnQ, the other Chapel Hill Business Park tenants are Craft33, Quantix and Driverge Vehicle Innovations.
Craft33 is the cabinet-making division of Akron-based Famous Supply, a wholesale distribution company that specializes in building and industrial products, plumbing and HVAC. Craft33 signed its lease in September 2021 and now occupies about 217,000 square feet of the south side of the business park, Salata said.
Supply chain management company Quantix, which serves the chemical industry, signed a lease at the business park in March 2023 and operates in about 160,000 square feet of space on its north side, Salata said.
Driverge Vehicle Innovations manufactures vehicles with features such as wheelchair lifts and tool racks to accommodate specific uses. Driverge signed its Chapel Hill Business Park lease in November 2021 and has about 164,500 square feet located between Craft33 to the south and Quantix and OnQ to the northeast and northwest, respectively, Salata said.
Brad Beckert, business retention and expansion manager for the city of Akron, said Driverge relocated workers from an operation in Richfield and hired more at its Akron site.
Nicholson added that Driverge hires regularly.
In the business park, Driverge operates what Salata called “essentially an assembly line” with its vans coming through, likening the look of the operation to “a very upscale car dealership.”
Craft33, Quantix and Driverge did not respond to the Beacon Journal’s requests for comment by its deadline.
More: Chapel Hill Business Park gets major tenant, Richfield van conversion business Driverge
Storage of America renting out units at former Macy’s
Salt Lake City-based Storage of America rents storage units out of the former Macy’s at 1977 Bucholzer Blvd., north of the business park.
SOA Akron Main LLC, which is registered in Utah, purchased one parcel of the former Macy’s for $1.6 million in 2019, according to the Summit County Fiscal Office’s website.
The storage unit company was planning to fix a broken elevator and install 949 storage containers that ranged in size from 25 to 300 square feet, among other work, the Beacon Journal reported in November 2018.
Storage of America Marketing Manager Tanya Churchill said in April that customers can now drive directly into the building to store items.
A search on the business’s site showed “drive-up access” as a feature of three units available for rental. The search showed units ranging from 30 to 300 square feet.
“We didn’t want the building to go to waste, so we figured we would convert it,” Churchill said.
She added that she visited the site in 2023.
“Unless you told me it was a Macy's, I never would have guessed it,” she said.
Churchill said she was unable to answer more questions about details of the space, and additional questions that she said she forwarded to Storage of America leadership went unanswered as of press time.
Is Chapel Hill Business Park still leasing space?
ICP is still looking for a tenant or tenants of the business park in the building that was formerly the Sears Auto Center to the southwest of the main mall complex, Nicholson said.
The building formerly operating as the auto center has two floors with 21,626 square feet of available lease space on the first floor, and its second floor has 19,200 square feet of available lease space, according to a document that Salata shared with the Beacon Journal.
“It can be multi-purpose use,” Nicholson said. “It can be light manufacturing, a distribution auto center, obviously — [it was] purposely built for that.”
ICP may construct more buildings and lease more space at the former mall site, Salata said, adding that he sees that happening “given the velocity of the leasing down there and the success we've had in such a short period of time.”
“All of that is obviously driven by the market, and with rates where they currently are, it's pretty darn expensive these days to build a new building from the ground up,” Salata said. “But we definitely have the space.”
Nicholson said one plan that ICP has drafted is a 112,000-square-foot structure on the 60 acres that the business owns.
“That’s one option, and we’re just throwing options on paper,” Nicholson said. “If somebody needed a smaller building than that or two buildings or something else — we as a landlord are open to anything, obviously if it makes financial sense to us and to the user.”
Nicholson declined to share what ICP charges tenants, citing that factors such as length of leases and tenants' credit are factors that make prices variable.
With local workers in tow, historic structure lives to fight another day
Chapuis, who started OnQ in a garage in California 20 years ago and is still based there, applauded the dedication and hardworking ethos of Akronites.
“It’s just been a remarkable group of people,” Chapuis said. “It’s a remarkable town.”
Berkley and Brumbaugh said they’re glad to be part of the business activity returning to the mall.
“It’s just cool to be in the space again, walk around and know that you spent so much time here back in the day,” Berkley said. “It’s kind of come full circle.”
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: What's happening with the former Chapel Hill Business Mall in Ohio?
