You did it again! All of the relevant history and statistics laid out on a plush and living 1980s carpet of prose that reaches deep into an appreciation of a far better time. No body does this historic video art better than you do. You are greatly appreciated.
Watching this in 2022 to bring back childhood memories. I live 5 minutes away from this and I’m happy to say this mall has been turned into a big entertainment district called Camp Landing, and I actually work at the indoor theme park there where elder Beerman used to be. Rural king and movie theater are still there, there are new restaurants, an indoor theme park, and the food court is full of tenants. Quite possibly the best business this mall has ever seen !
I am from this area, originally this mall was named the Cedar Knoll Galleria or referred to as the Cannonsburg Mall! I don't remember a time when this mall was busy and I don't think all the stores were occupied all at once.
Ah, 1989 - my last **really** good year. Hip-hop was smack in the zenith of its golden era and the summer seemed endless. I was at the top of my game and element that year and my influence in the high school drum line gave out with what used to be called "Funk and Soul with a Roll". Seemed everyone and everything was riding high, fast and smooth - 1989 was the year everyone was naturally stylin' and profilin'. Real. That year without malls would've been like missing teeth - and twice as sore. It's where everyone met up, co-ordinated and set up weekend plans. Movies, miniature golf and hoppin' desert parties. 11:30 p.m., 96 degrees and a shitload of Zima and whatever the hell wine coolers everyone could get hold of. Surrounding bonfires with pickup truck beds full of teenage "romance", then working it off by thrashing those trucks on the sand dunes with Prince's "Batdance", De La Soul, 2 Live Crew, Neneh Cherry, Too $hort, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Jazzy Jeff and Presh Prince, prime Metallica, Rush, Tears For Fears, Violent Femmes, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Paula Abdul and whatever the hell else made us move blasting through every car there with a cassette deck. True friends - real times. Feeling high and happy - without narcotics. ;) I was 17 years old through most of 1989 - part of me still longs for those days.....
@@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.
Life has been actually breathed into this place! It is now called Camp Landing and a Malibu Jacks indoor amusement park has opened and the movie theatre revamped.
I am from an area close to here and the Kyova mall had always been the secondary mall of choice. The Ashland Town Center (sometimes seen as Towne) had always been the go-to location, if you were to travel further than that to shop you might as well hop on the interstate and go to the Huntington Mall, as it always had way more to offer. In my RUclips experience, I have hoped than Dan Bell would cover this mall, as his presentation is head and shoulders above the rest as far as abandoned places go. I watched this video without expectations and am fully impressed! Your camera work is on point and you were super informative about the history of the place. Thank you for the coverage and the time and effort taken into your production of this video. I appreciate you all very much!
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.
Thanks for visiting that mall, i use to live close to that mall. You should check out Ashland Town center which is only 15 mins from there and also Huntington Mall which is maybe 30 mins or so.
@@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
Kyova finally died with the COVID epidemic, going almost completely vacant in 2021 as the mall was sold off in July for redevelopment. While the (now renamed) theater remains, the area has been renamed the "Camp Landing Entertainment District" - the Rural King and Burger King also survived the transition.
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.
I love the 80's colors in this mall. While it probably hurt them in the long run to not renovate, I think nowadays with nostalgia being a selling point, malls using this color might work. Just a theory. Also, the name of the mall is pretty cool too
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. :)
Bit of an update for this mall I went there around 3 months ago only the food court area is really open since they walled off the other sides of the mall due to Covid (don't know why since it is already a dead mall).
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 RUclipsrs 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.
First off, I just stumbled upon your channel last night. I absolutely love your content and was so excited when I saw you covered Kyova and Charleston Town Center. That made me wonder where you were from and I was so excited to see you were from Huntington, WV. So am I! I have spent some time in this mall. A few years back they had glow in the dark mini golf. It was surreal to be in the dark playing mini golf in such a time capsule of a mall. I'll never forget it! Lastly, I really didn't come here to plug content but I write music that is inspired by what seems to be common interests we share. If anything, I think you'd enjoy the clips I used for my music video "New Day New Wave" I look forward to more from you guys!
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!
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.
You can still walk through it now though. It's not called the kyova mall anymore though. It's got a Cowboys n angels clothing store. Nice food court now.
You need to visit the Towne Square North Mall in Owensboro, KY. It is falling fast and so many businesses are closed, but it would make an interesting video for sure!
I think (with real emphasis on the uncertainty of that word) I last visited this mall at some point between 2003 and 2004, before the name-change and rebranding. It was very dead at the time, with Dollar Tree being one of the only stores open on what I believe was a Sunday afternoon during the Holiday season. Largely empty, it was a creepy experience, and it wasn't very long after that my interest in abandoned places arose, and I found sites like Deadmalls, and Opacity to indulge in that interest. The mad, leftward-dash of SONIC the Hedgehog was the perfect way to close this one out. Thank you again. :)
This is one of my local malls growing up. I grew up in Ashland/Flatwoods Ky. So this the Ashland Town Center and Huntington Mall were the places to be. I used to be on the " teen board" at Ashland town center in the early 2000's 😂 I was a mall rat for sure. This mall never really took off. Always been the dead mall. Great video! Also your observations are spot on here. I also spent the night here with my girl scout troupe in the late 90s. I'm glad it still looks the same. And the Phar-Mor had an awesome neon movie rental place!
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.
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.
Do you think you could get an updated video on this place now that it’s Camp Landing? It still looks like it did when it was open as a mall and they added fake palm trees throughout it
@@UniCommProductionsIt's really nice now! It's got 6 or 7 restaurants at the food court now! It has a go cart track, bowling alley, casino, ax throwing, pool tables, Cowboys n angels clothing store.
Hello very impressed music voice quality excellent narrating!👍. I grew up in Charleston West Virginia in 2002, I moved to Hollywood FL. For a better life especially being at 22 years old at the time . My teenage years were spent at Charleston Town Center with the red tile brick floors the water fall it came from the third-floor food court to the first floor.♥️. truly an awesome mall for such a small city. And of course even with the invention of Internet areas get left behind, No documentation of the past. No videos of the waterfall running, A arcade on the third floor picnic area, just so sad. No one never documented.these things. I'm sure the mall would have a video archive. The waterfall was removed in the early 2000s . Do you have any thoughts?
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!
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
@@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).
Eggleston didn’t “lure” RJ Kahuna’s Sports Bar in- they opened it themselves just like the other restaurant, Callihan’s. Kyova mall used this same tactic with at least three other “shops” including the aforementioned gift shop (Angel’s Cards and Gifts) as well as two food court restaurants. Also, the spaces that were “covered up” were actually never fully finished when it first opened as Cedar Knoll. They still have gravel floors behind the drywall.
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.
Great vid! What is the song at the very beginning? Will you please cite the music sources from this video? Thanks in advance and keep up the excellent videos!🔥🔥🔥
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 RUclips’s copyright bells so this was a really helpful solution for us !
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 usually shop at the Ashland Town Center and that's been the go-to for my family since I was a kid (it was one of the first places I visited after being vaccinated for covid). I've only visited the Kyova twice, once in its former life as the Cedar Knoll Galleria. In the early 90s, my family took a trip to Nashville to attend an Andy Griffith Show convention/live cast reunion, and I have a very distinct memory of stopping at the mall's Phar-Mor on the way there. Much later, in, I think, the late 2000s or early 2010s, I went back there on a whim and a K-B Toys was somehow still open, though it looked as if it hadn't been restocked in years. Exploring the store, I found (and bought) some "new old stock," mint condition action figures from "The Mask" animated series that hadn't been on the air for nearly 20 years. Until watching this video, the only thing I'd heard about it was from a friend from Ashland, who says the movie theater is pretty excellent.
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.
Thanks for that 80s throwback. 🤗 I was going to comment it's too bad we didn't see the colors more, but realized it's a better to see it's poorly lit. How long of a drive it took you to get there?
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
Dead fruit from a rotting tree. I do miss the happy hubris of yesteryear but nothing like this exists as an island. We were over the nostalgia before the 90's ended. Walmart 1mi away kicked them hard in the nuts but I think Steve & Barry's cut and run scheme threw it down a hole that was already half-dug. A bigger, boringer-ass place there never was. Byeeee!
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.
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.
Oh yeah, this one just screams G.H.W. Bush "Read My Lips" era mall architecture. The slatted/gridded open ceilings was such a fad that peaked from about '88-'91. This is the kind of place I love too, a living, surviving (for now) testament of a bad decision made decades ago whose actors have moved (or passed) on to forget about it. Non economically successful but not economic to demolish, so it remains a public time capsule. But at 32 years old, it's going to quickly get very expensive to keep standing and to justify the millions that would be needed to do so. 30 years is pretty much the high limit of life for mechanical/HVAC stuff if it hasn't been changed already. 20 years for a roof, so it seems at least they are doing that. I love these sad examples of great architecture built in the wrong place or at the wrong time.
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.
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.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I find your videos as relaxing as they are fascinating. Subbed a while ago, but wanted to send some words of encouragement. Keep up the great work!
Thank you so much; you picked a great video this is one of my favorites.
You did it again! All of the relevant history and statistics laid out on a plush and living 1980s carpet of prose that reaches deep into an appreciation of a far better time. No body does this historic video art better than you do. You are greatly appreciated.
Watching this in 2022 to bring back childhood memories. I live 5 minutes away from this and I’m happy to say this mall has been turned into a big entertainment district called Camp Landing, and I actually work at the indoor theme park there where elder Beerman used to be. Rural king and movie theater are still there, there are new restaurants, an indoor theme park, and the food court is full of tenants. Quite possibly the best business this mall has ever seen !
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 am from this area, originally this mall was named the Cedar Knoll Galleria or referred to as the Cannonsburg Mall! I don't remember a time when this mall was busy and I don't think all the stores were occupied all at once.
I was just here, and the inside is closed to the public now!
Ah, 1989 - my last **really** good year. Hip-hop was smack in the zenith of its golden era and the summer seemed endless. I was at the top of my game and element that year and my influence in the high school drum line gave out with what used to be called "Funk and Soul with a Roll".
Seemed everyone and everything was riding high, fast and smooth - 1989 was the year everyone was naturally stylin' and profilin'. Real.
That year without malls would've been like missing teeth - and twice as sore. It's where everyone met up, co-ordinated and set up weekend plans. Movies, miniature golf and hoppin' desert parties. 11:30 p.m., 96 degrees and a shitload of Zima and whatever the hell wine coolers everyone could get hold of. Surrounding bonfires with pickup truck beds full of teenage "romance", then working it off by thrashing those trucks on the sand dunes with Prince's "Batdance", De La Soul, 2 Live Crew, Neneh Cherry, Too $hort, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Jazzy Jeff and Presh Prince, prime Metallica, Rush, Tears For Fears, Violent Femmes, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Paula Abdul and whatever the hell else made us move blasting through every car there with a cassette deck. True friends - real times.
Feeling high and happy - without narcotics. ;)
I was 17 years old through most of 1989 - part of me still longs for those days.....
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.
Update the mall has been up for sale since early this year
Life has been actually breathed into this place! It is now called Camp Landing and a Malibu Jacks indoor amusement park has opened and the movie theatre revamped.
I keep meaning to make it over there and look around. I might even make a little video
Great video. Interesting mall. Thanks for filming.
I worked at the movie theater there for 3 years ❤️now it's completely changed into an indoor entertainment park
I need to go back over there and check it out. I’ve driven around it but I haven’t gone in yet
I am from an area close to here and the Kyova mall had always been the secondary mall of choice. The Ashland Town Center (sometimes seen as Towne) had always been the go-to location, if you were to travel further than that to shop you might as well hop on the interstate and go to the Huntington Mall, as it always had way more to offer.
In my RUclips experience, I have hoped than Dan Bell would cover this mall, as his presentation is head and shoulders above the rest as far as abandoned places go.
I watched this video without expectations and am fully impressed! Your camera work is on point and you were super informative about the history of the place. Thank you for the coverage and the time and effort taken into your production of this video. I appreciate you all very much!
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.
I live near here and it looks just as dead as it did when I was a kid! Wonderful video!
Thanks for visiting that mall, i use to live close to that mall. You should check out Ashland Town center which is only 15 mins from there and also Huntington Mall which is maybe 30 mins or so.
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
"This weekend, TIffany! live in center court!!!!! Also two for one jeans at County Seat and all tops 20% off at Chess King!
Man, County Seat--it's like if the OG Arizona Tea had a clothing line. So much stonewashed denim and pastel southwest patterns.
In Kuwait they have a mall that is literally a mile long and is large enough to support two full size movie theaters (one on each end). It is insane
That is *huge*!!
Kyova finally died with the COVID epidemic, going almost completely vacant in 2021 as the mall was sold off in July for redevelopment. While the (now renamed) theater remains, the area has been renamed the "Camp Landing Entertainment District" - the Rural King and Burger King also survived the transition.
I keep meaning to get over there and check it out
Love this so much! From the Huntington area, I was the user from Reddit who had the photo set from here from November of 2019!
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.
You should do the charleston west virginia town centre mall
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
I love the 80's colors in this mall. While it probably hurt them in the long run to not renovate, I think nowadays with nostalgia being a selling point, malls using this color might work. Just a theory.
Also, the name of the mall is pretty cool too
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. :)
this is beautiful! Looks so good. Great video!
Thank you very much! This mall really gave me a lot to work with.
Bit of an update for this mall I went there around 3 months ago only the food court area is really open since they walled off the other sides of the mall due to Covid (don't know why since it is already a dead mall).
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 RUclipsrs 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.
The into to this is dope! I love all the driving shots and the song you paired with them is so good
Thank you so much! I love that track a lot.
First off, I just stumbled upon your channel last night. I absolutely love your content and was so excited when I saw you covered Kyova and Charleston Town Center. That made me wonder where you were from and I was so excited to see you were from Huntington, WV. So am I!
I have spent some time in this mall. A few years back they had glow in the dark mini golf. It was surreal to be in the dark playing mini golf in such a time capsule of a mall. I'll never forget it!
Lastly, I really didn't come here to plug content but I write music that is inspired by what seems to be common interests we share. If anything, I think you'd enjoy the clips I used for my music video "New Day New Wave"
I look forward to more from you guys!
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!
You make this mall look amazing
Thank you-that means a lot from a local :)
As Hard as it is to say this place is being completely redeveloped and remodeled. RIP vintage aesthetics😢
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.
You can still walk through it now though. It's not called the kyova mall anymore though. It's got a Cowboys n angels clothing store. Nice food court now.
You need to visit the Towne Square North Mall in Owensboro, KY. It is falling fast and so many businesses are closed, but it would make an interesting video for sure!
Never mind! I see that you already did! 😊
Great minds think alike!!
This is 🔥! Great video! Very steady hand!
Thanks, John!
I think (with real emphasis on the uncertainty of that word) I last visited this mall at some point between 2003 and 2004, before the name-change and rebranding. It was very dead at the time, with Dollar Tree being one of the only stores open on what I believe was a Sunday afternoon during the Holiday season. Largely empty, it was a creepy experience, and it wasn't very long after that my interest in abandoned places arose, and I found sites like Deadmalls, and Opacity to indulge in that interest.
The mad, leftward-dash of SONIC the Hedgehog was the perfect way to close this one out. Thank you again. :)
great videos , nice vibe. gonna hit the bell now
Thank you, William! I will not let you down!
This is one of my local malls growing up. I grew up in Ashland/Flatwoods Ky. So this the Ashland Town Center and Huntington Mall were the places to be. I used to be on the " teen board" at Ashland town center in the early 2000's 😂 I was a mall rat for sure. This mall never really took off. Always been the dead mall. Great video!
Also your observations are spot on here. I also spent the night here with my girl scout troupe in the late 90s. I'm glad it still looks the same. And the Phar-Mor had an awesome neon movie rental place!
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😆💗
I drive through Ashland when I go to our family's cabin in eastern Kentucky. It doesn't seem like the kind of place have any mall, let alone 3.
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.
Great video and glad you brought the car ride intro back.
I take feedback like that to heart. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Do you think you could get an updated video on this place now that it’s Camp Landing? It still looks like it did when it was open as a mall and they added fake palm trees throughout it
I really should-when I shot this video I lived two hours away but now it’s only 30 minutes!
@@UniCommProductionsIt's really nice now! It's got 6 or 7 restaurants at the food court now! It has a go cart track, bowling alley, casino, ax throwing, pool tables, Cowboys n angels clothing store.
I never knew this existed.
I had no idea either! It's a much larger mall than it looks in photos.
Hello very impressed music voice quality excellent narrating!👍. I grew up in Charleston West Virginia in 2002, I moved to Hollywood FL. For a better life especially being at 22 years old at the time . My teenage years were spent at Charleston Town Center with the red tile brick floors the water fall it came from the third-floor food court to the first floor.♥️. truly an awesome mall for such a small city. And of course even with the invention of Internet areas get left behind, No documentation of the past. No videos of the waterfall running, A arcade on the third floor picnic area, just so sad. No one never documented.these things. I'm sure the mall would have a video archive. The waterfall was removed in the early 2000s . Do you have any thoughts?
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!
It appears to be in decent shape. I only noticed one place open. How many inline stores are left?
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
3:50 HQHAHAHHAH "That's it" that really IS it
Sometimes there’s more to it; in this case it was just way too much.
Okay I've watched all of your videos, some twice. I got bored so I tried "Vampire ASMR" videos (Yes, it's a thing). Please make more. Thank you.
I am currently on a trip where I hope to come back with footage of seven malls so it’s on its way!!!
Provided it's not closed down or demolished, I think you'd love the aesthetics at Lakeshore Mall in Sebring FL. Exact same aesthetics.
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).
Now that's Forest Fair dead. First person spotted 8 to 9 minutes in.
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.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Pretty place. Sad to be so empty.
It never even had a chance to do well. Against all odds, the doors have managed to stay open.
Eggleston didn’t “lure” RJ Kahuna’s Sports Bar in- they opened it themselves just like the other restaurant, Callihan’s. Kyova mall used this same tactic with at least three other “shops” including the aforementioned gift shop (Angel’s Cards and Gifts) as well as two food court restaurants. Also, the spaces that were “covered up” were actually never fully finished when it first opened as Cedar Knoll. They still have gravel floors behind the drywall.
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.
Should i get our food or wait for lowes
Great vid! What is the song at the very beginning? Will you please cite the music sources from this video? Thanks in advance and keep up the excellent videos!🔥🔥🔥
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 RUclips’s copyright bells so this was a really helpful solution for us !
Here because of Dan Bell. Being from Eastern Kentucky, I love seeing great content like this. What camera/lenses do you shoot with?
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 usually shop at the Ashland Town Center and that's been the go-to for my family since I was a kid (it was one of the first places I visited after being vaccinated for covid). I've only visited the Kyova twice, once in its former life as the Cedar Knoll Galleria. In the early 90s, my family took a trip to Nashville to attend an Andy Griffith Show convention/live cast reunion, and I have a very distinct memory of stopping at the mall's Phar-Mor on the way there. Much later, in, I think, the late 2000s or early 2010s, I went back there on a whim and a K-B Toys was somehow still open, though it looked as if it hadn't been restocked in years. Exploring the store, I found (and bought) some "new old stock," mint condition action figures from "The Mask" animated series that hadn't been on the air for nearly 20 years. Until watching this video, the only thing I'd heard about it was from a friend from Ashland, who says the movie theater is pretty excellent.
Does anyone have the music listing for this video? Thanks.
Is mastercuts still a thing? I always see closed down ones in dead mall vids
I’m not sure but I haven’t seen an open one in quite a while.
Still a few left in NC
Are this the original fountain
Yes nothing in this mall was ever remodeled or expanded.
Is it me, or are the corridors of this mall dark? Also, not one wet floor sign or buckets catching water either!
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!
Thanks for that 80s throwback. 🤗 I was going to comment it's too bad we didn't see the colors more, but realized it's a better to see it's poorly lit. How long of a drive it took you to get there?
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.
🆒 VIDEO UNI COMM!!! I HAD MY NOTIFICATIONS TURNED OFF!!! THAT'S Y I DIDN'T KNO BOUT UR RECENT VIDEO!!! LATER 🐍 SNAKE!!!
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!!!
Rural King is a good store
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
Dead fruit from a rotting tree. I do miss the happy hubris of yesteryear but nothing like this exists as an island. We were over the nostalgia before the 90's ended. Walmart 1mi away kicked them hard in the nuts but I think Steve & Barry's cut and run scheme threw it down a hole that was already half-dug. A bigger, boringer-ass place there never was. Byeeee!
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.
I hated Ashland Ky I was a long drive and just drab nothing exciting. Which made working in these places unbearable.
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.
Oh yeah, this one just screams G.H.W. Bush "Read My Lips" era mall architecture. The slatted/gridded open ceilings was such a fad that peaked from about '88-'91. This is the kind of place I love too, a living, surviving (for now) testament of a bad decision made decades ago whose actors have moved (or passed) on to forget about it. Non economically successful but not economic to demolish, so it remains a public time capsule. But at 32 years old, it's going to quickly get very expensive to keep standing and to justify the millions that would be needed to do so. 30 years is pretty much the high limit of life for mechanical/HVAC stuff if it hasn't been changed already. 20 years for a roof, so it seems at least they are doing that.
I love these sad examples of great architecture built in the wrong place or at the wrong time.
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.
Lovely, poignant look at an also-ran mall.
This mall has been dead since the 90s I think. #FuckAmazon
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.