Eastwood Mall celebrating 50 years in Niles this year

The Eastwood Mall is celebrating a special milestone this year, its 50th anniversary.

When Anthony Cafaro, Jr., co-president of the Cafaro Company walks through center court, the memories come rushing back.

"We used to have the fountains right about here. I was working maintenance and I actually painted all the fountains throughout the center court of the mall and throughout the shopping center," said Cafaro.

Later this year, the mall will hold a big party to celebrate it's 50 years in the Valley.

"It's a great celebration. It's a great accomplishment for the community and for all of our retail partners here to be able to celebrate this," said Cafaro. "We're very proud as a family to be able to see the changes and the growth and the new storefronts and the new businesses, and hopefully we've played a small part in being the catalyst certainly here in Trumbull County for a lot of that growth."

While celebrating the past, Cafaro is also looking forward to the future and taking on the challenge a lot of malls are struggling with and that's high vacancy rates.

"We can't just do the same thing over and over again," he said.

Which is why Cafaro says the company has taken a lot of steps over the last decade or two to stay relevant to the ever-changing needs of the Mahoning Valley.

"This is not the same mall that my grandpa or my parents would even shop at. This is a mall that is continuously going to change, and that's the motto we've had for years to stay ahead of the curve, not to be reactive, but proactive," said Cafaro.

So how does the mall maintain relevance?

"Seeing additional entertainment options inside the mall, just creating reasons for people to come here and to be here and want to be here," said Cafaro. "We want to appeal to everybody of every age, every socio-economic classification and just be part of the community."

One example of that is reaching out to local businesses in the area.

Cafaro sees that has a real opportunity for growth to add local businesses run by people who may have a small storefront or work out of their home.

"We think those are the types of businesses that will be the next evolution, again tying back to the community. People had always assumed that to operate a business in the mall you had to be one of these national chains. We do not believe that is the case. We want to encourage, we'd love to see more local businesses, so one of our efforts in 2019 and what we believe will be new and different is bringing more local businesses here into Eastwood Mall," said Cafaro.

For a mall and complex that has already seen so much change in 50 years, Cafaro can only imagine what the next 50 will bring.

"Continuously reinvent and reinvest. As a locally owned shopping center, as a family that's rooted here for generations now, we have no plans to stop reinvesting, and we'll continue to reinvest. And the future, the next 50 years, I'm looking forward to being able to have my kids and maybe even my grandkids be a part of the business and to kind of carry on the legacy," said Cafaro.