Westgate Mall (Fairview Park)

Westgate Mall has existed as a Greater Cleveland suburban shopping center in some form since the mid-1950s. Located at the intersection of Center Ridge Road and West 210th Street Fairview Park, Ohio at the boundary of Rocky River, Ohio. Westgate mall is now known as "Westgate", and now has reformed into an outdoor shopping center.BeginningBuilt several years after the close of World War II, the original Westgate Center opened in 1954. The first such shopping mall in Greater Cleveland, 8.5mi from Downtown's Public Square, and the first suburban shopping mall in Ohio, as one of the first post-war suburban retail centers with department store anchors in the United States, situated on a 55acre parcel. The original anchors of what was then an open-air plaza of separate stores and outdoor walkways were a 3-level Halle Bros. Co., 2-level Federal's Department Store, a Kroger Supermarket, and in 1961 Federal's built a new 1 level store across the lot from Halle's and the former Federal's become the first suburban store for Higbee's Department Store.Eventually, Higbee's also took over the newer Federal Department Store space when Federal's closed in 1969 but not before Atlantic-Spartan opened in the location in 1969 until 1972. Higbee's moved their Home Store to this location in 1973. The center was roofed over in the late 1960s to compete with neighboring newer Parmatown Mall 8mi southeast and Great Northern Mall 4.5mi southwest of Westgate Mall.