Amherst Shopping Mall Proposal – June 11, 1971

Back in the 1950s and 60s, the west side of Lorain enjoyed a major population explosion, resulting in the need for new shopping centers to provide the growing number of residents everything they needed to buy. Westgate Shopping Center and Lorain Plaza Shopping Center soon become regular stops for west side shoppers.

With the new Ohio Route 2 expressway built just south of Lorain in the 1960s, Amherst would experience its own growth spurt and the need for more shopping as well. Thus it’s not surprising that fifty years ago in June 1971, the plans for the new Amherst Shopping Mall were unveiled, to draw shoppers from both cities.

Amherst Shopping Mall? Yes, at that time the developer expressed certainty that the shopping center would be an enclosed mall. It didn’t happen, however, and today the somewhat scaled-down collection of stores is known as Amherst Plaza Shopping Center. 

There was supposed to be a standalone movie theater there too. Read all about the original proposal in this article, which appeared in the Journal on June 11, 1971.

Here’s a close-up of the map (drawn by Gene Patrick) shown in the 1971 article. Note the inclusion of Dewey Road.

And here’s a present day Google Map of the area. I always knew that the parking lot at Amherst Plaza was huge. I guess it’s because those extra buildings, the theater, etc. were never built, and the L-shaped store arrangement replaced the original mall idea.

As longtime contributor Dennis Thompson noted a few years ago in a comment, the portion of Dewey Road north of the highway (seen on the 1971 map) was renamed Liberty Bell Street.