Inside Abandoned Medley Centre (a.k.a Irondequoit Mall)

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published January 24, 2016 and can be found here.

     By       Snoop Junkie

Last week Medley Centre finally went up for auction. Angelo Ingrassia, former owner of Irondequoit Dodge,     won

the vacant building plus nine adjoining properties for the bargain basement price of $100,000.

The following images were taken last month (December 2015) inside Medley Centre...

   A fond memory of my teenage years and likely many of yours as well, was hanging out at the mall with my friends.

   Not in the sense that it was time well spent, or that specific memories were made while being oh so productive doing whatever it was that we did, but because at that point in life, it was a taste of freedom & independence. A chance to spread the wings and blend with society--in a teenagerly sort of way.

   I personally remember spending much of our time frequenting stores in the mall like Coda, Time-Out (arcade), JW, Structure, FYE & Record Town.

   Or who remembers Chess King, Merry go Round, Tape World, KB Toys & B Dalton?

   And yes, let's face it, another pastime that many of us considered a priority at the mall was chasing around the girls or the guys. Then of course after all the "chasing", we'd need a boost to bring us back up for round two, so we'd stop for an Orange Julius or maybe a Cindy's cinnamon roll!

   Anyhow, I could go on, but I'll let your memories take over from here.

   The     Irondequoit Mall

as I remember it, and more recently Medley Centre, is somewhat of a time capsule from those days of past. It officially closed its doors in 2009 (Sears is still in operation), but stores were beginning to shut down within well before that.

   A combination of both petty crime and a rising wave of loitering led to the demise of this mall. Loyal shoppers would eventually start taking their shopping dollars elsewhere.

   Those of us that enjoy exploring the abandoned, often times protect what we have found from others, or at least the "how to" when it comes to getting inside specific locations. Much of this has to do with minimizing the damage to a place like this, through control of information.

   Some would like no more than to get inside and destroy whatever possible, for the "fun" of it. Whereas others, like myself, go primarily for the appreciation and photo capture of whatever it is that we seek out, while respecting our surroundings and those who may have still have an invested interest.

   In this instance, a tip was received from another local explorer (SG77) to a small window of opportunity, in exchange for information on another desirable location.

   And this little transaction worked out quite nicely for us, as the teenager in me has long been wanting grace the halls of this mall with its presence, one final time.

   But be warned, as the window of opportunity which I had is now nonexistent. As a matter of fact, there is currently a strong police presence on the property as well as additional security and active surveillance inside. Getting inside at this point is no longer an option, and I would strongly recommend not trying.

   But anyway, I'll be quiet now. Let's have a look around.

   Wow. Looky what we've found here. Former owner Scott Congel had ambitious plans for redeveloping the mall. A 421-room hotel, 330 condominium units and a 16-screen movie theater would be part of the project, as well as retail, restaurant and office space and an underground parking garage.

   This model is about as far as that project ever got before the mall's last remaining tenants started to leave, and Congel found himself in a mess of tax problems.

   Are you hungry? Let's hit the food court.

So, what do you think? Did Angelo close the deal of the century? Or get taken for a ride?

- Snoop Junkie

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