MIDDLETOWN — Though holiday shopping is nearly non-existent around the gutted City Centre Mall in the economically depressed core of this Butler County city, development officials hope next year's shopping will be dramatically different.

        A maze of largely empty storefronts — and nearly 20 buildings over a four-block area — once connected via concourses and walkways, is now a gutted mall open to daylight.

        As part of a $13 million redevelopment, the chronically troubled mall's roof was removed in August. Construction equipment roams where an ever-dwindling number of shoppers once did. The mall, created in 1975, is being returned to a shopping and office complex that will restore two streets — Central Avenue and Broad Street — and, officials hope, also return downtown Middletown to economic viability.

        The CrossLinks 2000 redevelopment project is on schedule to open next October and is on budget, said Middletown senior planner Joanne Mejias, who described the project as “a leader in what can happen if this works as we hope.”

        Besides restoring retail outlets to downtown, the CrossLinks 2000 project is an attempt at “jump-starting the area,” Ms. Mejias said in reference to the sparse downtown business.

        Next month, bids for retail and office development will be solicited, and, “we're hoping the private sector will step forward,” she said.

        The redevelopment will feature restored streets, pedestrian areas, storefronts, benches, trees and raised planters, all designed to give the area a historic atmosphere and to differentiate the area from the city's newer growth zone near I-75 featuring the Towne Mall and large retail shopping strips.

        A mainstay but never a fan of the former mall was Rogers Jewelry, whose headquarters remains downtown.

        “I believe it was wrong from the start, and right to get it out of here,” said Rogers LTD Inc. executive vice president Richard Isroff, who said the wait until next year is worth it. His store has moved a short distance to the Fifth Third Bank building at Central and Main Streets and business is slightly better already.

        “We feel we can wait this year and then make a quantum leap forward next year,” he said.

        But longtime Middletown resident Constance Bowling is skeptical.

        “They need to quit spending all that money and quit building new stuff that a couple of years later they tear down,” said Ms. Bowling, who was headed to one of the handful of city service offices and shops still operating. “It will still be a mess down here,” she said.

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