COLUMBUS, Ohio — Eastland Mall has seemingly not had anything left to give for years. Inside, though, it has everything to offer.
Tricia Nagel is the owner of BGR Auctions. When Eastland Mall closed its doors at the end of 2022 after more than 50 years in business, Eastland Mall Holdings, LLC, hired her company to sell off as many things as it could.
“When I was walking around with one of the representatives from the mall and he said ‘You’re so excited about all these things’,” Nagel said. “And, I said ‘Yeah, there’s a lot here’.”
Around every corner, there’s something new.
“The treasure hunt is a big part of it,” she said. “We never know what’s gonna be lurking in the next store room.”
The auction company has found everything from lumber to display cases, shelving units to decorations, wigs to full-size mannequins.
Nagel says even after working for more than a month inside the mall, her crews still haven’t been inside every store and back room.
On the auction site, every bid starts at $1. Auctions will go for the next couple of months before Nagel says the building will be demolished sometime in May.
Hagel says the biggest obstacle has been people who are unfamiliar with the process who do not understand the location, pickup instructions or payment.
“It’s kind of creating a problem when people don’t pick up their items and then we have to relist them again,” she said.
Last week, 300 items were sold, but she says confusion has been costly.
“The last [auction] was almost $4,000 (in sales),” she said. “And of that $4,000 we had about $760 that didn’t get paid.”
The night the auction ends, winners will receive an email with an invoice. The email also details instructions for in-person pick up, as well as a time window items can be claimed. People are also expected to be able to load and transport any purchased item without assistance from BGR Auctions employees.
Nagel says if a person cannot make it on the scheduled day, they can pick items up at another time that is convenient, but only if they go ahead and pay for the item(s). If a person does not pay for their items, Nagel says they are in jeopardy of having their bidding number suspended.
Nagel says BGR gets a percentage of the final sales and the rest goes to Eastland Mall Holdings, LLC. She says the auctions allow for quality items to have a new home, while helping to keep them out of a landfill.
The facility has also currently been used for law enforcement and fire department training scenarios.