The Shoppes at Parma, formerly known as Parmatown Mall, is a mixed-use open-air retail center located in Parma, Ohio, within Cuyahoga County in the Greater Cleveland metropolitan area.
Positioned at the southwest corner of Ridge Road and West Ridgewood Drive, the 756,000-square-foot property sits approximately 10 miles south of downtown Cleveland with direct access from two major arterial roads.
The center serves as the primary retail destination for Parma and the surrounding south Cuyahoga County communities, anchored by Walmart Supercenter, Burlington, Marc's, and Dick's Sporting Goods.
Originally opened in 1956 as an open-air plaza, the property operated as an enclosed regional mall for five decades before a $95 million redevelopment completed in 2017 returned it to its open-air origins under Phillips Edison ownership.
Opening Day on a Booming Street Corner
In autumn 1956, people drove to the corner of Ridge Road and West Ridgewood Drive in Parma, Ohio, and filled a parking lot larger than anything the area had seen before.
The shops lined open-air walkways. There was a Woolworth store. Children ran across the pavement while their parents went from store to store without ever going inside a single enclosed building.
Parma was growing quickly in 1956. The population rose from 28,897 in 1950 to 82,845 by 1960. All those new residents needed places to shop.
Parmatown was built to meet that need. It directly answered one of the largest waves of suburban growth in the history of Greater Cleveland.
Work on the center had started by 1955, and it officially opened in 1956. These dates refer to different phases of the same project.
From the start, the site looked more like it does today than like the enclosed mall people remember from the 1970s and 1980s.
A seal statue stood near the entrance in those early years. It remained through every later renovation and demolition, and it is still there today.
Parmatown Shopping Center Gets Its Big Anchor
The open-air plaza that opened in 1956 did not immediately have the anchor it would become famous for.
That came four years later. In June 1959, May Company broke ground at Parmatown on a four-story, 305,000-square-foot building.
The architects were Victor Gruen of Los Angeles and Harry A. Sharpe of Cleveland.
The building had reinforced concrete block walls, textured brick veneer, turquoise-and-white ceramic columns, central air conditioning, a central audio system, and a protected exterior colonnade along its facade.
On August 23, 1960, the May Company store opened. In 1963, the company added an auto and tire center to the site.
That building would eventually become Kaufmann's in 1993, then Macy's in 2006, stand empty after Macy's left in 2012, and be demolished in 2014.
From groundbreaking to wrecking ball: 55 years on the same plot of land.
At 305,000 square feet on its own, the May Company store dwarfed most of the other buildings at the center and pulled shoppers from across the south side of Cuyahoga County.
It changed what Parmatown was capable of drawing - and what tenants would come after it.
Enclosed, Expanded, and Remade as a Larger Mall
In 1965, the open walkways at Parmatown Mall were enclosed, converting the center into an indoor mall. This change matched a broader shift in suburban retail that would dominate for the next three decades.
The following year, an expansion added a Higbee's department store, introduced a second level, and created a fully enclosed west wing.
In 1979, a south wing was built with a food court and a two-level section for JCPenney.
Plans for the Higbee's store moved on a separate track. In May 1965, the company approved a 185,000-square-foot location at Parmatown Mall.
It opened in 1967 and attracted strong attendance. The store later became Dillard's in 1992 before closing in 2000.
The mall also added a theater during this period. The Parmatown Twin Theaters, developed by General Cinema, were completed in 1967.
The original setup included two screens and 2,400 push-back seats arranged in staggered rows to ensure clear sightlines.
The parking layout was designed to handle theater visitors. Additional screens were added over time, and by the mid-1980s, the total had reached five.
At that point, the mall functioned as both a shopping center and a main weekend gathering place for Cleveland's south side.
What Parmatown Mall Felt Like at Its Peak
People dressed up to go to Parmatown Mall. Not for any special occasion - just to go to the mall. That fact alone separates what Parmatown Mall was in the 1970s from anything the site has been since.
May Co. and Higbee's on one end, Kresge on the other, JCPenney in the south wing after 1979. Aladdin's Arcade.
Five movie screens. Antonio's pizza. Easter events with live animals in the common area. The annual Rib N Rock in the parking lot.
For a city that had been farmland thirty years earlier, this was the closest thing Parma had to a town square.
Antonio's lasted at Parmatown Mall through July 2024. That single fact cuts through the whole history of the place more cleanly than any timeline.
May Company opened in 1960, and its building came down in 2014. Higbee's opened in 1967, became Dillard's, closed in 2000, and got replaced by a Walmart.
JCPenney held on until June 2020. Antonio's just kept serving pizza through all of it - the boom years, the receivership, the demolition, the rebranding.
After the 1979 expansion added the south wing, the food court, and a second level for JCPenney, the complex reached 1.18 million square feet across 83 acres.
That number is worth holding onto. Current The Shoppes at Parma covers 756,000 square feet. Even after a $95 million redevelopment, the site is significantly smaller than what Parmatown Mall was at its peak.
The Cinema's Long Run and Replacement by Dick's
The Parmatown theater ran for 37 years under three different operators before a sporting goods store ended its run.
General Cinema opened it in 1967 with two screens, expanded to three in the 1970s, and added two more in the 1980s.
General Cinema closed it in 2001. The following year, Cinema Grill took over the space, renovated the front lobby, and let customers order meals at their seats while watching films.
Cinema Grill was evicted after failing to pay rent. Cleveland Cinemas stepped in next.
In August 2004, Cleveland Cinemas was asked to leave to make room for a Dick's Sporting Goods. The last day of operation was August 12, 2004.
The theater space was later redeveloped into a big-box retail footprint. Kresge had already closed in the early 1980s during an earlier expansion.
By 2004, two of the original tenant categories - the variety store and the cinema - had left or were leaving, while a traditional department store was still operating.
The 2011 Default and What Followed
The complex entered receivership on July 6, 2011, after RMS Enterprises - a venture formed by the Ratner, Miller, and Shafran families of Forest City Enterprises - defaulted on its mortgage.
Macy's announced on January 4, 2012, that it would close its 288,000-square-foot Parmatown Mall store, with clearance sales beginning January 8. The store closed in early spring 2012.
Phillips Edison acquired Parmatown Mall on October 16, 2012.
The complex at that point included the enclosed mall, an adjacent strip center anchored by Marc's, and a four-story medical office building - 1.18 million square feet across 83 acres.
Phillips Edison separately acquired the vacant Macy's building at the same time. That building was demolished in January 2014, early in the broader mall demolition and redevelopment process.
The Macy's building's demolition was not the end of the old structure - it was the start of the dismantling.
Phillips Edison announced on March 26, 2013, that the property would be redeveloped under a new name: The Shoppes at Parma.
The City of Parma's own task force had described the situation plainly: anchor stores closed, buildings empty, the mall fallen into disrepair.
Demolition, Redevelopment, and $95 Million
The plan announced in 2015 set out to demolish what remained of the enclosed mall and replace it with an open-air retail center.
Instead of clearing the entire site, parts of the existing structure would be reused to form three buildings, while a fourth building would be built new.
The design also called for new drive aisles, better pedestrian access, a courtyard, updated storefronts, landscaping, and parking.
The City of Parma Planning Commission approved the plan unanimously. By early 2016, demolition was underway and visible from Ridge Road.
The project cost reached $95 million. Phillips Edison kept 15 tenants in place during the transition, including JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Walmart.
It also lined up new tenants before opening, including Ulta, Panera Bread, Chipotle, Mission BBQ, Five Guys, and Aspen Dental.
The city described the project as a key part of a larger civic area linking The Shoppes at Parma with City Hall, the public library, UH Parma Medical Center, and Byers Field.
Most of the redevelopment was finished by summer 2017, following the schedule set two years earlier.
New Ownership and the Center Today
Allied Realty and Development Corp. acquired The Shoppes at Parma on November 26, 2019, for $80.6 million.
At the time of the sale, the center held Burlington, Five Below, Old Navy, and Walmart among its tenants across 765,000 square feet.
The current official site puts the figure at 756,000 square feet and lists Burlington, Old Navy, Walmart Supercenter, Marc's, Dick's Sporting Goods, Panera Bread, Mission BBQ, Chick-fil-A, Crumbl Cookie, Rally House, Ulta Beauty, Ace Hardware, and Antonio's Restaurant.
Masala Monsoon was open at the site by September 22, 2025.
JCPenney was announced for permanent closure on June 4, 2020 - the last of Parmatown's major department store anchors to leave.
Shoppers World opened in that space on November 26, 2021, and closed it on March 5, 2025. As of April 2026, no replacement tenant had been announced for that building.
