BY JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A Roselawn church is poised to buy Swifton Commons, the nearly vacant Bond Hill shopping mall.
Allen Temple AME Church and mall owner Star Bank expect to close on the deal Wednesday, sources said. A price was not revealed, but the bank paid $2.2 million for the 424,000-square-foot property at a sheriff's auction almost two years ago, and its bondholders were owed $3.4 million.
In addition to using the nearby mall for worship space, church officials have discussed opening a vocational training center, a day-care center and a medical clinic.
The Rev. Donald Jordan, chief operating officer of Thompson Hall & Jordan Funeral Homes, is pastor of the congregation.
Swifton Commons, between Reading Road, Seymour Avenue and Langdon Farm Road, was the first open-court mall in Cincinnati and one of the first in the United States. When it opened in 1956, it had 66 merchants.
But as the area's population shifted outward and other malls sprang up, the occupancy rate eventually fell below 10 tenants. Star Bank foreclosed on then-owner the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. in March 1996.
The Allen Temple project would be one of the largest development efforts by an area church, but would not be the first.
In 1996, a coalition of four churches purchased Avondale Town Center at Reading Road and Rockdale Avenue.
