Students Charged With Tough Assignment: Help Mothballed Malls Shopping for New Uses Date: March 10, 2000 By: Mary Bridget Reilly Phone: (513) 556-1824 Archive: General News For generations, two malls in Kettering, Ohio, outside of Dayton were loyally shopped. Then, they were dropped, victims of ever-changing shopping trends and traffic patterns. "Our problem is one that faces many communities in the U.S. What to do with a defunct mall?" asked Tom Robillard, director of planning and development for the City of Kettering. "Hills & Dales [one of the malls] once prospered because its roadway was once the main thoroughfare between downtown Dayton and the south suburbs. Then came the interstate. The population in the community can support smaller retail but no mall," he added. That's the challenge facing 17 advanced students in the University of Cincinnati's top-ranked architecture school: how to recharge both Hills & Dales Mall, located at Dorothy Lane and Dixie Highway, as well as the Van Buren Mall, located at Forrer and Smithfield Blvds. And their professional peers will be watching, according to Robillard, adding that Kettering's malls were the sole subject of a national conference in February when developers, architects, land planners and real estate experts considered the sites. "Their eyes are on Kettering to see what we'll do. It may become a national model. This is an extremely large problem around the country. People are looking for a good prototype," stated Robillard. The UC students led by Frank Russell, director of UC's Community Design Center, are developing about eight prototype ideas and will present them to Kettering Mayor Mary Lou Smith, Robillard, and others at 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 14, on the main staircase of UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. UC students Kristifer Dillehay and Chris MaGee are brainstorming plans for a research center studying alternative-fuel cars on the site of the Hills & Dales Mall. Dillehay names the advantages already in place for such a facility: Kettering is within easy geographic distance to Detroit, has a research-oriented business community with numerous ties to Detroit's auto industries already in place, and has a skilled labor force. Appropriately, their designs call for "green" architecture, making use of solar fuel cells and wind power as well as water power from a lake on the site. "It could even generate retail and a name for Kettering. People would come to see what the latest buzz was on these new stylish, economical, environmentally friendly cars," claimed Dillehay. In looking at the same mall, Jody Bates and her project partner Jeremy Schoenfield, are seeking to transform Hills & Dales into a multi-generational gathering place. Their site plan calls for an office park/medical facility on the southern edge of the mall's expanse, adjacent to an existing office facility. They also envision a daycare for the benefit of both rhe proposed and existing office park on the east edge of the mall's current site. Adjacent to the day care would be an assisted living center for senior citizens. "Some of the senior citizens could work part-time in the daycare," said Bates who has, during professional cooperative education quarters spent working, already designed offices and senior housing. Students Ryan Howell and Josh Wentz want to create pedestrian links between the surrounding neighborhoods and the now-empty Van Buren Mall. They envision small retail, office, and technology start-ups finding homes within the 182,000 square feet of the existing mall. "They covered 16 acres laterally. We want to free up that space for green spaces. We would propose building a little more vertically while still maintaining the human scale," said Wentz.