Western Hills Plaza is a typical shopping center. There’s a Target, a T.J. Maxx, a GameStop, a Michaels, a Ross, a PetSmart, a LensCrafters – what you would find in any retail plaza anywhere.
But back when it opened on the West Side in 1954, Western Hills Plaza changed the way Cincinnati shopped.
The shopping center at Glenway Avenue and Werk Road in Westwood was a local pioneer in one-stop shopping. Putting a large retail complex in the suburbs was something of a gamble at the time.
The 40-acre property, on a portion of the James N. Gamble estate, cost $5 million ($62 million in 2026 dollars) to develop. The complex was built by local homebuilders Brune-Harpenau Builders, Inc. The designing architect, Raymond Loewy and Associates of New York, was a legendary industrial designer who also designed the 1953 Studebaker Starliner Coupe, the Greyhound bus and the Shell gasoline logo.
Four stores opened Sept. 30, 1954. Then the grand opening of Western Hills Plaza on Nov. 17 was a four-day extravaganza with local radio and television personalities and a miniature train ride.
The Cincinnati Post devoted a 12-page advertising section to the opening. The Enquirer was more subdued with just five pages.
The open-air shopping center started with 31 stores and “ample free parking for over 3,000 cars!” – an ad boasted.
The selection of stores was “designed for the ultimate in modern day shopping”: The first suburban locations for McAlpin’s and Mabley & Carew department stores, plus Kroger and Albers super markets, Richman Bros. men’s store, F.W. Woolworth, Fanny Farmer chocolates, a bank, a barbershop, a shoe repair shop and dry cleaners.
“(The shopping plaza) is almost like an entirely new city come alive,” the Post wrote.
That is precisely what pulled shoppers away from the stores Downtown. Casual, convenient, one-stop shopping close to home. The Post described the advantages:
“It is a place where a housewife may park without difficulty, cash a check at the bank, buy the groceries, outfit the children for school, get her hair fixed, pick up that little potted plant for the solarium and select a new dress.
“Her husband can acquire new tools, the shotgun he’s been wanting, or the paint he needs for the back porch.”
Shopping centers don’t seem so novel anymore, but at the time this was a major change in shopping habits and the beginning of the end for downtown department stores. Why take a streetcar Downtown and trek across multiple city blocks to get your shopping and errands done?
The Enquirer in 1953 reported the data on who the Western Hills Plaza customers would be, how much would they spend and how it would increase over the next decade, concluding:
“There are the ingredients and the trend is obvious – shopping centers are gradually becoming a must in residential areas.
“The mass migration from the country to the city which took place in the past, now has been reversed by a new, still more powerful wave – people are once again moving to the outlying neighborhoods.”
For the first 10 years, each anniversary of Western Hills Plaza was celebrated with a special sale and news of the retail success. It began the trend of suburban shopping centers and malls in Cincinnati.
Swifton Center in 1956. Tri-County Shopping Centre in 1960. Western Woods, Cincinnati’s first covered shopping center, became a neighbor a block away at Glenway and Parkcrest avenues in 1963, with a Shillito’s, a Gallaher Drug store, a Thriftway supermarket and 1,400 more parking spaces.
The area’s first enclosed mall, Kenwood Mall (now Sycamore Plaza), opened in 1966. Then malls exploded in the 1980s.
Shopping habits changed again. Local department stores gave way to national brands. McAlpin’s in Western Hills Plaza closed in 1998, replaced by a Sears. Kroger upgraded across the street. Media Play (and physical media) disappeared, replaced by Target.
As more shopping is done online, Western Hills Plaza has outlasted the regional department stores and most of the malls.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: West Side shopping center once changed Cincinnati’s shopping habits
Reporting by Jeff Suess, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jeff Suess, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
