Growing up, I used to pedal my bicycle up to the big bear plus at mill run. Back in those days, Big Bear Plus of Mill Run was a happening place
And the heart of the Mill Run shopping center. CINEMARK movies 12 was right behind the shopping center and after seeing a movie, we would hang outFront or go hang out back at the shopping center.

I remember buying comics up there like captain America or Green Lantern and would ride home feeding some ducks on the way back home. All of this happened before my freshman year of high school when the Big Bear Plus closed its doors.

People began to talk about how someone was embezzling from
The Big bear corporate headquarters causing the entire chain of supermarkets to close down. No more comic books…no more bike rides to the store… No more silly commercials featuring then OSU coach John Cooper. The doors just up and closed. I heard rumors that a Giant Eagle was supposed to move in from neighbors “in the know” about such things but it never developed. The store front remained vacant and empty throughout my high school years, into my undergrad years I’m high school.

After being gone for about 8 years,
My family and I moved back and still that store remains vacant and empty. Sadly, it’s been almost 20 years to the day that that store closed and while a Starbucks has opened up next to it,
Along with Aussie Fit, Chipotle and many other places….STILL it
Remains vacant, like some giant black hole in the Mill Run shopping center.

I drove past it today wondering how decrepit the inside of the building has become, why no one has looked at the property in over 20 years but more importantly why no one has figures out a way to transform the space from an empty eye sore into something else (I.e.-movies 12 became the movie tavern, Columbus sports and goods became an ITT center of Hilliard, etc.) some in other major cities have begun to transform old industrial centers into year round community gardens or centers.

I keep thinking “why doesn’t someone do something like this with this place?” Instead, the shopping center remains just that: the black hole of Mill Run.

Hopefully someone can figure out something to do with it before it collapses in on itself.