Category: Eastwood Mall

OUTLOOK: Shopping local – in a big way – at Eastwood Mall Complex

Posted on | by Christopher Anthony

NILES, Ohio – Do you remember hopping in the car for a “shopping trip”? A lot of people think of that as a quaint concept that’s all but dead, unless you count shopping on the tiny screen of some electronic device. Believe it or not, the idea of walking into a physical place, picking up merchandise, paying for it and taking it home is making a roaring comeback.

After a long period of virus-induced isolation, Americans have been eager to get out again sample the social joys of shopping. According to the Commerce Department, total retail sales for October through December 2021 were up 17.1% over the same period a year earlier, with most of it happening in brick-and-mortar retail stores.

That enthusiasm for shopping was evident during the recent holiday season at the Eastwood Mall Complex in Niles. There are several reasons why people came out. As news accounts spread of shipping and supply chain problems nationwide, many in search of that special Christmas gift wanted to make sure they had it in hand.

A great many people wanted to check out the new Boscov’s that opened at the mall in October. At 180,000 square feet, it’s the largest department store in the region and perhaps the only all-new department store to open in the nation last year.

Perhaps one big motivation was the desire to “shop local”. Along with national chains, there are also dozens of locally-owned stores serving customers at the Eastwood Mall Complex. They offer a unique flavor to the merchant line-up, often providing merchandise you may not see anywhere else. You’ll find it in the formal fashions on display at Lavish by Coral Rose and the specialized jewelry and Vera Bradley accessories at Gracylane.

In 2019, Renee Malutic and a partner opened a shop unlike any other in the region. The store, known as MiMe, uses 3-D printing technology (additive manufacturing) to create incredibly precise miniature statues of whoever poses in the store’s sophisticated photography booth.

Leaping into the role of entrepreneur is something Malutic relishes. “It allows you to have some creative freedom” she said. “You’re marketing something that you’re creating yourself.”

At Tri-County CBD, Jordan Robinson builds loyalty by counseling customers on the benefits of cannabis-derived oils, lotions and edibles designed to provide relief from a variety of ailments. “When we tell people we’re a ‘mom and pop’, they get relief just from that,” he said.

In many cases, the “new” stores at Eastwood are already familiar to local consumers. Last summer, after 135 years in Sharon, the iconic Reyers shoe tore moved (just about 14 miles) to the mall. While its old clientele followed, new customers soon discovered the brand.

Reyers Vice President Steven Jubelirer noted the importance of customer loyalty. “All our money we make, and all the money our employees make, is kept local,” he said. “You cannot find that up and down the street at chain stores. When you come into Reyers, customers know the difference.”

Scrappers See Financial, On Field Comeback in 2022

Posted on | by Christopher Anthony

Monday, February 7, 2022 John Vargo | The Business Journal

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — With revenues down about 98% during the canceled 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers began their financial comeback in 2021 and are looking forward to an even stronger 2022 season.

Attendance hovered around 2,400 spectators with a few games near Eastwood Field’s 6,000 capacity last year, although profits were 60% compared to a normal season, says Jordan Taylor, general manager.

This year, he’s hoping to hit it out of the park and nudge revenues closer to the 100% target.

“It was really step one in building things back for us,” says Taylor, who is also vice president of HWS Baseball, part of Massachusetts-based HWS Group, a sports management firm that owns and operates professional sports franchises.

“We’re very hopeful that this season, having a more traditional offseason for us to plan and put our programs together it’ll look very similar to a pre-pandemic Scrappers season,” he says.

The Cafaro Co. holds the lease on Eastwood Field, holding an agreement through 2033, and its spokesman Joe Bell says the pandemic and subsequent shutdowns left its tenants financially reeling.

“We know it is in everyone’s best interest to try to find a way to get back to what a normal financial picture should be,” he says. “Now, it’s just a matter moving forward.”

Mahoning Valley Scrappers General Manager Jordan Taylor says he’s hoping the team’s revenue reaches pre-pandemic levels in the 2022 season.

Dollar nights for drinks and hotdogs usually draw large crowds for Thursday home games, which starts the second season of the six-team Major League Baseball Draft League on June 2. Taylor says it might be one of his bigger crowds that evening, but not as big of a money maker.

“The overall revenue, even if you have more people, isn’t quite as high as a Friday or Saturday, but they can still get up there,” he says.

Most of the team’s expenses are food, the 200 seasonal and full-time workers, followed by the team’s merchandise and promotional costs, Taylor adds.

Concession options are expanded this season as fans can either order electronically or in person.

About 70% of the ballpark was open last year, but all of Eastwood Field’s amenities will be available to fans in 2022.

“It’s going to give us a chance to really open things up and give fans a great, overall experience,” Taylor says.

It’ll be better than the 2021 season where the first five home games were 30% capacity due to COVID restrictions and some games were canceled due to contact tracing – impacting game day revenues.

“I would say it knocked us 20-25% on what a normal day would be,” Taylor says.

Happenings at Eastwood

Last season, the stadium was full from mid-March to the end of October with more than the scheduled 34 home Scrappers games in 2021.

Each year the team wants to schedule about 100 events, everything from Youngstown State University and high school baseball games, community-based events, professional wrestling and live events like Jeff Dunham, which Taylor says was one of the biggest draws in Eastwood Field history.

The non-Scrappers events account for 15 to 20% of the team’s revenue and the team is well on its way to hitting the century mark in events. He adds the Scrappers are working with Indigo Road Entertainment for one to two more events in 2022.

“It’s been a busy offseason for us,” Taylor says. “Those dates are really filling up. It’s a good thing to see that this stadium is going to be utilized really well again this year.”

With the COVID restrictions in 2021, fan interaction and on-field promotions were limited – something the Scrappers hope will be nonexistent in 2022.

There are five buck nights, eight fireworks displays, bobblehead and other giveaways including five to six specialty jersey nights tied in with community themes and some celebrity appearances, which will be announced in the near future, Taylor says.

“It looks to be a pretty packed promotional schedule,” he says.

Second Season for Scrappers

Mahoning Valley, along with Williamsport (Pa.) Crosscutters, West Virginia Black Bears, Trenton (N.J.) Thunder, State College (Pa.) Spikes and Frederick (Md.) Keys returned in the second year of the MLB Draft League, where the season expanded from 68 to 80 games – giving the Scrappers 40 home games.

Last year’s manager Coco Crisp took a job with the Washington Nationals in the offseason, leading to a new staff for the Scrappers, which will be named in the next couple of weeks. MLB and Pro Baseball Report, who control the league, will announce all the teams’ staff at one time, Taylor says.

As of late January, there were 277 players under contract for the six teams.

“We’re way ahead of pace where we were last year,” Taylor says. “From what I’ve seen, the quality is going to be fantastic in the Draft League this year.

“We were, given the quick turnaround, how well the league performed.”

MLB Draft League players who went to a northeastern Ohio or western Pennsylvania college, or might be from the Mahoning Valley, likely will be on the Scrappers roster.

Last season was a pitcher-dominated league with many changes, leading to four-hour games early in the season. Taylor says in the second half of the season, after the MLB Draft in July, fans will view traditional games with pitchers going four to six innings.

He says pitchers in the draft league prior are on very restrictive pitch counts, which indicates why there are so many changes.

“Overall, we had some longer games due to the number of pitchers that are better utilized,” Taylor says. “I know they were looking at some changes, maybe reducing the amount of time between innings to have to go a little bit quicker.”

Despite that, Bell says he’s heard nothing but people pleased they can enjoy refreshments and a day at Eastwood Field.

“We just hope they keep doing what they’re doing,” he says “We’re glad to have them on the property. We’re glad to see them playing ball.”

Copyright 2022 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.

No Stepping on Service at Reyers

Posted on | by Christopher Anthony

Tuesday, January 4, 2022 Michael Moliterno     The Business Journal

NILES, Ohio – Upon entering Reyers Shoe Store for the first time, Jenny Black experienced something she had, until that time, seen only on TV.

“I thought, ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me right now,’ ” she says.

But it was. A knowledgeable shoe professional was measuring her foot with a Brannock Device to ensure she walked out with a pair of shoes that fit her well.

Jenny Black holding the slippers she purchased.

“I’m here with somebody and I told them, ‘He’s going to put the shoe on me,’ ” she says, laughing.

Although a new experience for Black, that type of service is what long-time customers of Reyers have come to expect, says its vice president, Steven Jubelirer.

“When you come to Reyers you’re going to get your foot measured by a professional who knows how to measure a foot, instead of going into a self-service store where you’re lost,” Jubelirer says.

And the staff and owners of Reyers don’t just talk the talk; they walk the walk – so their customer can walk in comfort.

On Oct. 30, less than three months after the iconic shoe store relocated from Sharon, Pa., to the Eastwood Mall, a secret shopper from Footwear Insight magazine visited Reyers.

Secret-shoppers grade each establishment on a score of 0 to 100 with stores receiving a 70 out of 100 earning a gold star.

“We got 104 out of 100 because we scored the bonus questions, too,” says President Mark Jubelirer.

In fact, Reyers received the highest score of any shoe store in the nation. “This visit was fantastic,” the secret- shopper wrote. “We would travel to this store location again and again.”

Reyers Shoe Store has been in business since John Reyer opened the Little Reyers Shoe Store in downtown Sharon, Pa., in 1886.

Left: Steven and Mark Jubelirer say Reyers is getting its footing back at Eastwood site; right: the Jubelirer brothers, decades ago, with their late father, Harry Jubelirer.

 

The store was purchased by Mark and Steven’s father, Harry Jubelirer, in the 1950s and remained in Sharon until August, when it moved to the mall.

“We see a lot of the same customers from the other location,” Steven says.

One long-time customer is Stacia Pascale of Brookfield.

“I’ve always shopped at Reyers,” she says. “If you wanted something unique they had it. When my stepdaughter got married, I wanted a very unique shoe to go with the dress I got and they had it. I still have them to this day.”

Like many, Pascale’s first visit to Reyers was as a child when her parents took her for back-to-school shopping.

Stacia Pascale shopping in Reyers.

“People used to drive an hour, hour-and-a-half, to come buy shoes. We had the selection,” Steven says.

In addition to local shoppers, Reyers also attracted tour buses – about 900 a year, Mark says, from cities such as Cincinnati, Buffalo N.Y., and Toronto, Canada.

But as online shopping made buying shoes more convenient, and downtown Sharon became less of a tourist destination, foot traffic began to decrease.

“Those bus tourists chose instead to go to casinos because that was more fun and they could get shoes anywhere, just like anybody else,” Mark says. “We had less and less traffic every year in downtown Sharon.”

The pandemic and the decrease in traffic, Jubelirer says, caused Reyers to post its worst quarter ever in the fourth quarter of 2020. “It was also our worst year on record,” Mark says.

To ensure the nearly 140-year-old business would stay open, the Jubelirers decided to relocate across the state line to Niles, Ohio.

The mall, with its big-name stores such as the new Boscov’s department store, is the perfect location because the foot traffic that is so crucial to Reyers’ success is all but guaranteed, Mark says. As a result, he describes 2021 as “massively better” than 2020.

“The goal is to match pre-pandemic levels of business and we are achieving parity with 2019 more so every day.”

Jubelirer reports Reyers’ fourth-quarter 2021 at the mall was better than its fourth-quarter 2019. “And our first quarter is going to be better than 2019 because there is traffic,” he says.

While things have worked out for Reyers, Jubelirer laments what downtown Sharon lost when the business moved. He holds it up as an example of what can happen to communities when residents fail to support local businesses.

“Local philanthropy moves to a different locality. People are hired from where the business is. We don’t hire from Pennsylvania much now,” he says.

During its years in Sharon, Reyers regularly supported local groups such as the United Way and Shoe Our Children, as well as food pantries and church groups. The Jubelirers sat on several boards, with Mark serving as president of the Downtown Sharon Association and the VisitMercerCountyPA tourism bureau.

Shoppers will likely find few if any alternatives that can match Reyers level of customer service and selection. “We have sizes and widths to accommodate a wider foot, a narrower foot,” Steven says.

In back of the store, out of sight of shoppers, is the supply room where Reyers stores the 20,000 shoes it keeps on site. The Jubelirers call it “miles of aisles.”

“It seems like in this location we’re selling a little higher-end, higher-priced product,” says Steven, adding that he and his brother have received nothing but positive feedback from their new customers. “A lot of the customers recognize that this is a better product than what you can find in the chain stores.”

And Mark says the brothers plan to do everything they can to keep shoppers coming back again and again. “It’s going to take a little while longer for us to develop a loyal following here but we shall.”

Pictured at top: Steven Jubelirer holding a shoe from a popular brand, Johnston & Murphy