They can tear down the building, but there won’t be a clearance sale on memories.
Stow Mayor John Pribonic announced this month that the former Macy’s store at 4301 Kent Road will be demolished because it’s “no longer conducive to contemporary retail area and layout requirements.” Property owner Stow Kent Associates LLC is in discussions with potential tenants about the future use of the land.
Everything old is new again. Nearly 60 years ago, this was “a beautiful modern store, designed, decorated and displayed for your shopping pleasure.”
The M. O’Neil Co. unveiled plans in November 1964 to build a Stow outlet “for the greater convenience of suburban customers.” The department store, which was established in downtown Akron in 1877, understood that many of its shoppers had moved away from the city into outlying areas of Summit County.
O’Neil’s President John L. Feudner Jr. selected a location at the east end of Stow-Kent Shopping Center, the $2.6 million plaza that Youngstown businessman Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. had developed in 1959 on a 42-acre site along what was then state Route 5. In today’s money, the project would cost more than $25.5 million.
The L-shaped plaza had nearly 20 tenants and boasted free parking for 2,500 automobiles — something that downtown Akron stores couldn’t match.
Locally, DeBartolo had already opened the Midway, Arlington, State Road and Norton shopping centers, and was busy constructing Summit Mall, a $15 million, 80-store giant that would also feature an O’Neil’s branch.
Feudner said the Stow-Kent store would be a “glacier-white, brick-faced building” containing 83,000 square feet of floor space. The one-level structure would cost $500,000 (about $4.6 million today) and offer a full line of departments, including clothes, home furnishings, appliances, furniture, accessories and a hair salon.
Ground broken for O’Neil’s
It snowed before the groundbreaking ceremony Dec. 1, 1964. A bulldozer had to loosen the frozen ground so officials could turn over shovels of chunky dirt in the 27-degree cold. Joining Feudner in the shivery event were Stow Mayor Roger Howard, Kent Mayor Frank J. Lange and DeBartolo Corp. Vice President Harold Flick.
Swim trunks and bikinis were on sale at the grand opening.
“Exciting new O’Neil’s Stow-Kent opens its doors tomorrow morning!” O’Neil’s beamed in a newspaper advertisem*nt Aug. 19, 1965. “It’s a big, bright, beautiful store located just minutes from Stow and Kent … and within easy driving distance of Ravenna and scores of surrounding communities.”
Mentioned by name were Hudson, Mogadore, Tallmadge, Twinsburg, Streetsboro, Atwater, Suffield, Rootstown and Garrettsville.
Akron wasn’t mentioned. O’Neil’s didn’t want its customers to stop shopping downtown.
“Here at Stow-Kent, you’ll find fashion excitement in a complete department store, including budget shops, all conveniently located on one floor. What rewarding shopping it will be … with wide, wide selections for every daily need: fine fashions, home furnishings, gifts, toys and endless more!” O’Neil’s noted.
The Stow-Kent store opened two months before Summit Mall.
Store Manager Paul Brashear and Stow Mayor Howard held the scissors at the ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 20. Posing with them for photographs were O’Neil’s President Feudner, Stow Chamber of Commerce official Albert Denholm and Assistant Manager C.H. Chambers Jr.
Surprisingly, no Kent representative was featured.
Stow-Kent stores fill plaza
Joining DeBartolo in welcoming O’Neil’s were “the many fine merchants” of Stow-Kent Shopping Center. Among them were A&P Foods, Birnbaum’s Fashions, Falls Savings & Loan, W.T. Grant, Gray Drugs, Holiday Shop, Honadle Fine Candies, King’s Beauty and Barber, Klein’s Sport Shop, S.S. Kresge, Kroger Foods, Lawson Dairy, Miller United Shoes, Nobil Shoes, Signal Finance, Top Value Redemption Center, W.E. Wright Hardware and Lowe Bros. Paints.
How many of those stores do you remember at Stow-Kent?
With hours from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, the “exciting and new” O’Neil’s branch offered all kinds of specials during its first week in business.
Shoppers could buy an Ebonite three-piece bowling set ($33.88), an Admiral Deluxe color television ($399.95), a Playtex Cross-Your-Heart bra ($3), Perma-Matic stain-resistant “Manslacks” ($6.99 a pair), a Sunbeam twin-blade electric mower ($59.98) and Surety super-soft pillows (two for $26.99).
Not interested in those? How about a Mirro-Sheen bouffant hair dryer hood ($1.50), a Lloyd’s AM-FM transistor radio ($29.95), Kickerino leather boots ($12), a Maytag automatic washer ($199.95), Stride Rite children’s shoes ($11) and a Jack Nicklaus Dupont Orlon acrylic sweater by Revere ($13.98).
Or perhaps Lewella double-control corsets ($5.99), a Smith-Corona Corsair typewriter ($44), a Donnybrook tweed coat ($80), Hanes’ argyle-pattern hosiery ($2.50), a Magnavox portable stereo ($95) and Arcross toilet tissue (15 rolls for $2.19). You get the picture.
“All this is yours in our beautiful modern store, designed, decorated and displayed for your shopping pleasure,” O’Neil’s noted. “Bring the family … shop at O’Neil’s Stow-Kent, where the only old-fashioned thing is the warmth of our welcome!”
As expected, the suburbs became a retail mecca.
Consumer spending habits changed drastically over the next 20 years. The downtown O’Neil’s store suffered a precipitous decline in business as consumers flooded malls and plazas. By the late 1980s, the downtown store was losing $1 million a year.
May Co., Kaufmann’s and Macy’s
December 1988 was the last Christmas at O’Neil’s. St. Louis parent company May Department Stores announced it would change the O’Neil’s name to the May Co. and leave downtown Akron after 111 years.
Sign makers kept busy. In 1992, the May Co. merged with Pittsburgh-based Kaufmann’s. In 2006, Kaufmann’s stores converted to Macy’s stores.
Meanwhile, conditions had deteriorated at Stow-Kent Shopping Center. The plaza lost major tenants as shoppers switched to shiny, new stores on Kent Road. By the mid-1990s, the center stood mostly vacant with paint peeling on abandoned storefronts.
In 2014, Stow welcomed a proposal from Michigan-based Meijer to build a store on the site of the dilapidated plaza. The old buildings were demolished and Meijer opened in May 2019 with great fanfare.
The increased traffic wasn’t enough to save the adjacent department store.
In January 2020, Macy’s officials announced they would shut down the Stow-Kent location after a clearance sale.
“The decision to close a store is always a difficult one, but Macy’s is proud to have served the Stow community over the past 55 years,” a spokesman said.
Shoppers made their final purchases and said goodbye.
Now the building will be torn down for something else exciting and new.
Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
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