Thank you so much; you picked a great video this is one of my favorites.

I saw that and yeah while it's super vintage and I'm sad to see it go personally...it's been fully closed inside since late last year so I'm glad it's going to be of use to someone.

Man, County Seat--it's like if the OG Arizona Tea had a clothing line. So much stonewashed denim and pastel southwest patterns.

We have plans to return to the area to see a few different things!

@@UniCommProductions I can remember when The Huntington mall opened in the early 1980s.I had graduated H.S. and moved to Columbus by the time the 2 malls were built in KY .I think the Town center has a better location being so close to the bridge is why it does better.

I think the problem with the mall as we knew it in the 80's is the super safe environment of the enclosed space : we out grow that level of safety…………….………………………………………...As adults we like the open out door environment : if you have an out door café in a safe neighborhood , that's safe enough : we don't need the walls to protect us: that's overkill : make a strip mall with an outdoor café area for summer and a small indoor café area for winter and some fast foods restaurants and the mall would be back in business

I had no idea either! It's a much larger mall than it looks in photos.

That is *huge*!!

I would love to go over there and do a follow up video about it…just to show people what’s possible with a mall like that.

I too am a fan of Dan’s and hope he makes it into Kentucky and Tennessee in future mall videos!! Thank you so much for watching; this was a really special mall, very serene in its emptiness and I enjoyed getting to document it a lot.

Thank you; it always brings a smile to my face when I hear from locals. I always aim to do someone's local hang justice.

It's now so old that it has turned the corner to being cool again. Thank you for watching! I found out when I was doing research apparently there are some businesses in Hawaii called "Kyova" so it's an exotic name. :)

Thank you-that means a lot from a local :)

Thanks, John!

Thank you for watching! We had a Phar Mor up here in Cincinnati and the video rental area is one of the more vivid things I remember--mirrored walls and neon.

@@UniCommProductions yes! That's what I remember. The mirrors😆💗

Never mind! I see that you already did! 😊

Great minds think alike!!

Howdy neighbor! I went back to Kyova about a week ago and was very disappointed to learn that the inside is completely closed (although you can still see inside from Rural King). I will take a look at your content; it DOES sound like we have some shared interests!

What's funny is that if the person you spot 8 to 9 minutes in is a guy in sunglasses and a grey hoodie, that's my boyfriend. He came there with me.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Thank you very much! This mall really gave me a lot to work with.

It never even had a chance to do well. Against all odds, the doors have managed to stay open.

Thank you, William! I will not let you down!

Thank you so much! I love that track a lot.

This comment captures 1989 so perfectly it hurts. :)

@@UniCommProductions Thanks - just ramblin' some Gen-X zeitgeist. No way I could ever forget 1989. Ever see anyone from your own high school party days? Those parties way out in whatever "boonies" you could find? The same ones who are all button-down, white picket fence now? Whenever I do, I always think to myself, "Yeah, girl - I knew you when. And when you did **what** when to who and why." LOL! Yeah - the 1980's and early 1990's are thick with me. Hell - I still wear British Knights on occasion.....

@@SwingMan1938 Yes, I do! (We've all got a past)...I'm 37 so I would have been 7 in 1989 but when I see stuff from the late 90's I have a very similar reaction.

Especially not when two of them opened within 6 mos of each other. The mall in Huntington (about 30 min away) is always packed when I drive past it. I havent been to the "other" mall in Ashland yet.

Sometimes there’s more to it; in this case it was just way too much.

Thank you! I’ve seen Charleston Towne Center in a few videos (since the fountain has been downsized unfortunately). I’m very interested in seeing it, it’s a great looking mall. I’ve seen photos of the running fountain a few times but never a video. Thank you for watching our video; I’m so happy you enjoyed it!

I keep meaning to make it over there and look around. I might even make a little video

I take feedback like that to heart. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Most of my videos in malls that are open are shot on a DJI Pocket 2 (which is what this was shot on). A few of my newer videos that are in closed malls were shot on a Sony a6500 and a Sigma 1.4f 16mm lens with a DJI Ronin SC gimbal. I did a string of malls in Eastern KY earlier this year so you’ve definitely got a couple more you may have been to!

I need to go back over there and check it out. I’ve driven around it but I haven’t gone in yet

I may have a reason to be in Florida eventually so this is good information!

@@UniCommProductions I think I may have posted a link to my Google Photos gallery of it on the Discord server. If not, I'll post it again tomorrow (as of the writing of this reply).

Thanks snake; we missed you!

@@UniCommProductions THX.!!! U AND RON WER FIGHTING OVER CANNED 🍖 MEAT??!!

@@snakeboren4814 POTTED meat! :D

@@UniCommProductions I GIT YA!!! NEVER CAN HAVE ENOUGH MEAT!!!

The music sources from this episode came from a service for creators that provides us with issue-free stock music, but the track is called “Future Vibes”. Since so much electronic music revolves around samples of other songs it had gotten really difficult to find music that didn’t set off KZfaq’s copyright bells so this was a really helpful solution for us !

We hadn’t ever been in one before that; the nearest one in Cincinnati is pretty far out of town. It seemed like a really big version of Tractor Supply Co.

@@UniCommProductions there is also a chain of stores in Oklahoma called Atwoods, which is a clone of Rural King. So that store format is popular in several markets

There’s the dress shop you probably noticed, a library and county clerk office, a gift shop, and some kind of consignment shop for an animal rescue. So maybe 7, generously, because a few other storefronts looked occupied but weren’t open on Sunday

I think you’re misunderstanding my use of the word lure. I didn’t intend to imply there were incentives offered to them or that anything was amiss-unless you’re saying that the business was opened by the mall’s owner which is interesting. I was told they’re just gravel by another local, it just didn’t make it into the script.

Yes, Eggleston opened RJ’s- as well as Callihan’s Pub and Grill, Angel’s Cards and Gifts (closed), Knot Just Pretzels (closed), and they fronted a Greek Restaurant in the food court until its “Manager” peaced out. The “J” in RJ’s stands for Johnny Eggleston- Eggleston Associate’s owner. The movie theater was also a venture by Eggleston under a franchise of Phoenix Theaters and once the franchise license ran out and the theater was established, they just dropped all the Phoenix branding and rolled with “Kyova 10”. The records of incorporation for the businesses can be found on the Kentucky secretary of state’s website. A lot of them have Eggleston’s attorney listed as the organizer but Johnny Eggleston as the responsible partner. And I don’t have proof of this, but it’s conjecture that the Rural King “bought” its anchor location as an “out-lot” just like the Burger King on the opposite side of the property did. The Rural King has an “entrance” inside the mall, but it is not open and the registers that were there at grand opening have been removed and it’s all now used as shelf space.

And, to be fair, Eggleston wanted the mall to appear as though they were “luring” new tenants left and right and the plot has fooled people in our area for years.

@@fussguss3011 Anchors owning their spaces is very common, especially among Sears and K-Mart. The reason they have continued to limp along as a company is by selling off their real estate holdings. So there's nothing sinister or unusual about the anchor being treated the same way a detached space would be. (and there is a way to prove it--you can look at the county tax parcel map and see that the mall is likely several different land tracts that are connected).

@@fussguss3011 I don't know that I think there's anything underhanded about the mall opening its own businesses to make the mall appear more occupied--it's unconventional, sure. I'd call your attention to the fact Simon, maybe the biggest mall owners in the country, having made bids recently to purchase Forever 21, JC Penney, etc, which would be exactly the phenomenon you're talking about but on a much larger scale. Again, I feel like my choice of the word "lure" (which I explained in my other response to you) is being interpreted by you as referring to some sort of dirty business dealings which is absolutely not the way I meant it.

I’m not sure but I haven’t seen an open one in quite a while.

Still a few left in NC

I went yesterday and you can’t get in there at all anymore which is just such a disappointment. The guys at Rural King seem to think they’re going to reopen it when the theater starts showing movies again

I unfortunately have to wonder if the fact there’s footage of some other KZfaqrs walking around inside some of the closed spaces caused them to put up the barricades. I don’t ever want to be the reason that happens somewhere.

I keep meaning to get over there and check it out

I really should-when I shot this video I lived two hours away but now it’s only 30 minutes!

They are very dark-even though we were there during the day most of the corridor lights are off and there are only skylights in the courts between wings. If you can believe it this footage has had some of the shadows lifted out of it.

@@UniCommProductions With the dark colored ceilings, it seems it would still be dark with the lights on.

This is true!

I am currently on a trip where I hope to come back with footage of seven malls so it’s on its way!!!

I have! I filmed it in late 2020 before they started hanging drywall over everything. Have you been there recently? It’s horrible.

@@UniCommProductions yep maybe one business left open but I think that may even be gone now

The food court is still fairly lively but I think the employees of the insurance company and other downtown workers contribute to that. Food courts tend to do well in urban malls even if the retail side is dead.

@@UniCommProductions when I went in there recently the food court looked vacant...i may be wrong though

It was about 2 1/2 hours. It was VERY dark in there and there’s only so much editing you can do to that before the footage just kind of breaks apart.

Yes nothing in this mall was ever remodeled or expanded.

The bittersweet news is that this one is now permanently closed, and is being remodeled into a sort of family entertainment complex which seems to be something the city is excited about (and is being spearheaded by a popular and successful local businessman), so I wish them the best of luck. I'm glad I got to see the mall intact in that state and I'm sort of sorry to see it go.

@@UniCommProductions That truly is bittersweet. Thanks for the update! I wish them the best too. There have been so many malls that tried to reinvent themselves only to fail again. There have been developers who think that by bulldozing it and building new retail that it will work, as if it's the building''s fault. Plenty of mid-2000s "lifestyle centers" that replaced malls that are themselves failing again. Very few developers have been able to crack that code, most of them never set foot in those towns and rely on demographics and data, thinking if it worked in Town X than it will work in Town Y too. And then you get the Simons who make every mall look exactly the same, completely disregarding local tastes. It's no wonder people don't feel connected to malls anymore. Taubman's all looked similar but at least each one was given a unique identity and he still had a lot of flops even back then (Bellevue Center is a favorite). This mall reminds me of Superstition Springs Center in Mesa, AZ. Opened a year after this one (and in a unique semi-circle shape), it was built too soon. It didn't have the population base until the mid-00s and then the recession took its toll. It has been dying a slow death since the day it opened. Once it had the population to support it, its developers built new centers (same old story) to siphon off those shoppers. Sorry to rant, keep it up, I love your content.

Im going to go out on a limb and guess you’re quite a bit older than most of my viewers (maybe old enough to have seen “On Polden Gond” in theaters?). When I was a kid, all malls looked like this one so it’s neat to see one that’s never been remodeled (the newer ones are so sterile and boring! So much white like a hospital!)...All that being said this mall should absolutely have never been built, and was a poor idea from the start.

Especially out where this mall is, it's basically in the middle of a field to this day.

Funny you mention the drabness of that drive, because that's one of the reasons why I eventually grew tired of driving along I-64 and US route 119 between Huntington, Charleston, and Logan. From Logan originally, my wife, our daughter, and myself lived in Huntington for two decades, and would semi-regularly drive down to Logan to visit relatives. After a while, I got so bored with driving I-64/119, that I eventually switched up and started taking WV state route 10 from Huntington to Logan. Yes, it has lots of elevation changes and a few hairpin turns, but once you know that route, it shaves 30 minutes off your trip easily, and the scenery is hilly and gorgeous.

Serious question: Did you watch the video, and was the sound on? The death of this mall came way, way, way before Amazon was in any way a competitor to it. What killed this mall was the fact they built two of them two miles apart when this town didn't have the market base to support two malls. #EffOvermalling. Thanks for watching, and I appreciate the support but I can say with complete certainty Amazon had absolutely nothing to do with why this mall was 60% empty by 1992.

I kinda think Amazon killed a few malls (like Randall Park Mall). I also think Ashland Towne Center killed this mall. They are too close. Ashland is too small for 2 malls.