Golf Mill Shopping Center; Niles, Illinois
Niles, Illinois is an inner-ring suburb of Chicago located about 15 miles from the Loop. With nearly 30,000 residents, Niles is a typical inner-ring suburb with a large post-war housing stock and lots of mid-mod artifacts as well as the rather kitschy replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, built in 1934.
The main commercial street in Niles is Milwaukee Avenue, (IL Route 21) which slices through middle of the village from northwest to southeast. The anchor of this commercial strip is the 1 million square-foot Golf Mill Shopping Center, located at the north edge of the village at the intersection of Milwaukee Avenue and Golf Road.
The story of Golf Mill Center goes all the way back to the 1950s. In 1959, Milwaukee-Golf Development began construction on a project to bring a large-scale shopping center to 88 acres of farmland at the corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Golf Road. The center opened in 1960, and was named, rather appropriately, after the intersection on which it sits. A two-level, 213,000 square-foot Sears anchored the open-air shopping center with 400,000 square feet of retail space on both the north and south sides. According to Mall Hall of Fame, some early stores included Hillman’s, Lytton’s, Walgreen Drug, Lamm Shoes, Richman Brothers, Lerner Shops, a Woolworth 5 and 10 and National supermarket. There was also a single-screen movie theatre and a Sears Auto Center.
In 1966, JCPenney tacked on a two-level, 190,000 square-foot store at the south end of Golf Mill Shopping Center. More interestingly, at the north end of the mall a live theatre venue called the Mill Run Playhouse and Millionaire’s Lounge opened in 1965. The Millionaire’s Lounge became a notorious gangster hangout throughout the 1960s and 1970s. If only those walls could talk!
The open-air Golf Mill Center enjoyed success during the 1970s and into the 1980s, even as larger enclosed malls such as Woodfield and Randhurst operated nearby; meanwhile, the much larger nearby outdoor venue Old Orchard Center solidified a grasp on tenanting upscale and exclusive retailers for itself, attracting shoppers from across the region. In order to differentiate itself from Old Orchard, and compete with the others, the owners of Golf Mill Center decided to fully enclose the mall in 1985. During this renovation, the Mill Run Playhouse was demolished after closing in 1983, and an 11-stall food court opened near the front center of the mall along Milwaukee Avenue. In addition, Chicago-based Mainstreet Stores was added as a third anchor to the north end of the mall where Mill Run Playhouse was; however, in 1989 this location was re-branded as Kohls because Kohls acquired Mainstreet in order to enter the Chicago market.
Once the enclosed mall was built, the mall became a rather unique design anomaly – not just in the Chicago area, either, as Golf Mill is one of only a handful of malls we can think of where the in-line space is “bisected” by a large anchor – Sears. In addition, the cylindrical Golf Mill office tower – designed to look like the surface of a giant golf ball – hinges on the mall in an interesting and unique fashion. The elevators to access the office tower come out right into the mall, on a short side wing leading from the main mall to an entrance near the south end and JCPenney. There are also some neat skylights where one can peer up at the office tower looming above from within the mall. We can think of at least a few malls with attached office towers and bisecting anchors, but rarely are they together and as interesting as this mall.
Throughout the past decade, numerous changes have taken place at Golf Mill Center in order to continue viability for the aging mall. In 1998, a 100,000 square-foot one level Target store was added to the north end of Golf Mill Center, joining Kohls at that end and becoming a popular boon to the mall. Then, in 2004, Rouse Company, the Maryland based owner of the mall, was acquired by Chicago-based General Growth Properties, who continue to own and manage the mall as of 2008.
In 2006, General Growth decided to embark upon an expansion and renovation of the 20 year old enclosed mall structure. The first addition was a 40,000 square-foot Value City Furniture mini-anchor, which opened in the north half of the mall in early 2005. Prior to the Value City opening, most of the north half of the mall was cleared of stores in order to prepare the space. In addition, a Kerasotes 12 theatre multiplex at the back of the mall opened in November 2006, and throughout 2006 and 2007 the exterior and interior of Golf Mill Center received numerous upgrades. Curiously, though, most of these $8 million upgrades have taken place in only half the mall, between Sears and JCPenney, where a brighter floor was installed and the older light posts were removed. The north half of the mall, between Sears and Kohls/Target, wasn’t renovated at all and is currently completely dead aside from the anchors. Also, a popular California-based sit-down chain restaurant Elephant Bar opened in the food court, and the childrens’ play area near JCPenney was removed and relocated to the theatre wing.
For now, Golf Mill Shopping Center is a viable mall and despite competition and upgrades, it continues to serve a very important niche in the middle class near-north and near-northwest suburbs of Chicago. Now that Randhurst has closed for redevelopment, the nearest malls providing competition are Old Orchard and Northbrook, which are upscale, and Woodfield, which is a considerable distance and serves a different niche altogether. So, even if some rather harsh Yelpers disagree, Golf Mill will soldier on.
We visited Golf Mill Shopping Center over the years and took the pictures featured here. The first set, from October 2001, features a randomly stumbled upon concert by pop-wonder Brooke Allison. So, enjoy that, and as usual, feel free to leave your own comments and experiences with the mall.
October 2001:
September 2008:
November 2008:
AceJay
December 18th, 2008 at 2:43 am
FIFTY VACANCIES?!
http://www.ggp.com/Content/Data/PDF/575-LP1.pdf
Holy crap, that’s terrible.
The renovated portion looks nice, too bad Sears kind of killed the other side.
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Matt from WI
December 18th, 2008 at 6:09 am
To think just a few years back (2004) when I first visited the mall, it seemed to be doing okay. Though the remodel year threw me off. You’d swear it looked more like from the late 1970s, what with how dark some areas of the mall were prior to the 2007 do-over.
50 vacancies though….ouch! That renovation hasn’t done squat, and frankly, looking at the pics of the remodel, it looks even more stale than its original mid-1980s look with all the chrome and little marquee lights around the skylights. (You can still see a bit of this leftover in the unrenovated ‘big-boxed half of the mall.
I think the anchors do fine enough on their own…..they’re popular in the area. That mall though….don’t know how much longer it’ll last.
Thanks for a look at the updated mall. I did get there this past year on my annual trek to Chi-town, but didn’t get in the renovated area. I only had enough time to sprint through the big-box portion.
With the value City gone, they may as well just tear out the mall concourse linking the three anchors at the north end and landscape it.
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Jonah Norason
December 18th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Incredible find! Old and new…clash. With Value City…gone…what will happen? Still nice, though.
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mall rat
December 18th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
you need to double check your facts regarding the recent history….
- GGP currently does not own this mall and it was not part of the Rouse acquisition in 2004. GGP is the manager of the mall on behalf of another party.
- The play area was not removed….it was relcoated to the theater wing.
Thanks for the rest of the history, though.
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Rich
December 18th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Value City hasn’t closed the furniture stores. I think Schottenstein still controls those. Golf-Mill is still listed as open.
This was an odd mall, even long ago (I remmeber seeing in in the early 70s). It was built at the end of the “plaza” era and malls would have been on the drawing board when it opened. Single anchor “plazas” were still common, but diminishingly so. It sounds like the original developers weren’t very forward thinking in terms of site planning. The hinterland for this mall would still have been growing at that point and it was common to build large plazas in stages, with expectations of more stores later-on. The area is post-WWII, but not “inner ring” in the same way as Evanston, OakPark/River Forest, Cicero, etc. which predated WWII and had some of the earliest suburban branches. It’s not even comparable to Northlake, Hillside, Evergreen Park, etc.
Golf-Mill would have done well because the nearest Sears stores were relatively far away at Six Corners in Chicago and later Woodfield, as well as Harlem & Lake. Full-line JC Penney stores would have been even further away until the 80s. Until the advent of big boxes and off-price retail, a Sears/Penney mall would have had a solid middle class clientele that could carry mid-range and even some moderatly upscale other stores.
Old Orchard has always been a very different draw and its more likely that Randhurst and, perhaps, Woodfield would have been greater competition and drawn people from the growing end of Golf-Mill’s trading area. The Six Corners area in Chicago has experienced a real rebirth in the last 20 years and probably has hurt Golf-Mill’s ability to draw shoppers from NW Chicago.
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john gallo
December 18th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
when gm was built the ancor space that is today jcpenney wes a one and only branch of evenston based lords department store thay closed allmost right away. penneys took there store and exspanded it . years a go a freind of mine managed the golf mill gap the mall had had problems with high return rates, it seams that the locals wood go to woodfield or old orchard and then come do all ther returns close to home witch is what maid his store unprofitable and the gap eventrly closed there not vary long after he left that store.
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Prange Way
December 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
@ mall rat:
The mall’s own website indicates it’s owned and managed by General Growth. http://www.golfmill.com/html/mallprograms.asp about halfway down. “This is a part of national partnership between General Growth Properties, (Golf Mill Shopping Center’s owner/management company)”
Numerous other pages on the web indicate it was also owned by Rouse until 2004 as well. I changed the part about the childrens’ play area. Can someone find some reference that indicates the mall is owned by someone other than GGP? We do want to be accurate here. Thanks!
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Pat747
December 18th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Interesting find about the Skytron in the food court in that it is the same model thet was at The Mall of Memphis. Is it still hanging at GM?
http://www.mallofmemphis.org/Main/IceChalet
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Jonah Norason
December 18th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Hmm…bisecting anchors and office towers? Sounds like the Galleria to me. This doesn’t look like a bad mall at all…needs a little love, maybe a larger food court. Sears isn’t that bad…I don’t feel awkward walking through a Sears (that couldn’t be said for Saks, for instance, in the Galleria’s case).
The question is the health of the anchors inside.
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SEAN
December 18th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Kerasotes Theatres has an interesting history throughout the midwest. Most of there theatres were in places like Indianapolis & other similar sized cities. then they went on a building binge, constructing megaplexes called “showplace’s” with 12 to 18 screens. When AMC baught out Loews Cineplex, Kerasotes was able to buy many former prime locations of Loews plus add locations like Golf Mills to expand there footprint in Chicagoland. In adition they picked up theatres around Denver from Mann Theatres when they exited that market. Today Kerasotes has over 600 screens & is still growing with new locations in Glenview & Skokie.
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Jonah Norason
December 18th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I’m seriously starting to believe Target was originally stand-alone. Although news items do indicate 1998, the fact you one can see Target’s exterior from the interior the mall really bothers me.
This is the exterior:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AcUdTl7Aq-s/R5ez13i7DLI/AAAAAAAADhg/jSnkpubHvP8/s1600-h/Target+Golf+Mill_Cook+Cty.jpg
Now look to the mall entrance to the left, and see the bricks and striping!
http://www.labelscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/golf-mill-27.jpg
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Chip
December 18th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
WOW A Chicago mall I’ve never been too!. Too far away for a south suburbanite like me. Mall looks anicent, needs a major overhaul or redevelopment. Most 2 anchors malls have died and are in the process (North Park, South Commons). They should add a Carson’s or Macy’s to the east or west, which ever side and fit an anchor. Pics remind me of North Riverside Mall, an old outdated mall stuck in the stagnet inner-ring suburbs, headed down the road to abandonment.
Kerasotes Theaters should not confused with GKC Theaters (George Kerasotes Co.) A rivalry with the Kerasotes family split the family business into 2 seperate operaters. GKC was the main movie theater company in Central Illinois until it was swallowed up by Carmike.
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Matt from WI
December 18th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
I’ve been to North Riverside, and in the 5 years i’ve been in there, I’ve watched it slowly slide downhill. A remodel during the 1990s that added a parking deck to the southeast quadrant, butting against the east walls of the mall and JCPenney, to suppliment the supposed crowds for the new cinemas and food court expansion, and filling in the former Wards with a Sears, haven’t done anything.
There’s an entry for North Park on here too….search for it.
You’re going to see most 2-3 anchor malls in Chicagoland pretty much done in over the next few years. The only ones that’ll survive are way out in the fringe suburbs….your Woodfields, Gurnees, Hawthorns, Fox Valleys and the like. Actually you can expand that to the whole country……most malls of this ilk will all be done for, succumbing to big boxes.
Not TRYING to paint a doom-and-gloom scenario here, but you have to take into consideration the dwindling amount of national chains left to fill the mammoth amount of room in some of these malls, the fact that the department stores on their own do well enough…..you could seal off the mall entry points from these stores and they’d still do a ripping business.
Wait till 2009 folks, you’re going to see another mass exodus of clothing retailers. Mid-1990s all over again, but it’ll be more painful this time around, as there’ll be no one to replace the stores that may pull out (we don’t know who yet is suffering this holiday season, and won’t till the numbers roll in come the New Year). Back in the mid 1990s, your Merry Go Rounds, Chess Kings, Mariannes, and the like were replaced by Abercrombie and Fitch, PacSun, and Aeropostales.
This will be a hard year forthcoming for retailing….a huge shakeup and shake-out of chains. It’s already been happening since the start of this year.
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Erica
December 19th, 2008 at 12:18 am
I have been worrying about this mall for years. It looks very dated from the outside as you drive past it.
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Chris
December 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
About the Skytron display someone mentioned — we had one in Madison Square Mall in Huntsville back in 2002 and I’d seen them in several Nashville, TN malls in 2001. During 2003, practically all of the Skytron displays were dead and were later removed. The thing was run with rear-projection displays and computer projectors were used. The bulbs would burn out. Ours displayed “needs bulb replacement” messages for a while before going dark. As far as I could tell, the machines played a short DVD (45 minutes or so) over and over. If you sat in the food court, “Superman (It’s Not Easy”)” by Five For Fighting would be seen twice while eating a meal because it appeared twice in the 45 minute DVD. Everything was 4 by 3 material being dumbly stretched to 16 by 9, making everything look stupid and unappealing. There was the annnoying “man with question marks on his suit” ad (Lesko?). Even videos with a 16 by 9 ratio were letterboxed 4 by 3 and stretched to 16 by 9. I’m convinced that Skytron was some marketing person’s “bright idea” and that person never thought that anything would require maintenance, and knew nothing about video at all. It died a quick death and after all of the bulbs failed and they were eventually taken down, I don’t think anyone was sad to see these things go.
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atrex21
December 20th, 2008 at 4:14 am
The Target was indeed built later on. Prior to this, that corner housed a much smaller Herman’s sporting goods store, which was the first shop on the right as you walked in the mall entrance by MainStreet/Kohls.
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Nitek Ketin
December 21st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
That Lane Bryant store has an interesting storefront. The mall itself, doesn’t look half bad.
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Allan
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:52 am
Pretty good write up on Golf Mill, Prange Way. I kept thinking for a very long time that this would be a good candidate for doing an entry on for labelscar, and good to see you finally covered this mall.
What’s unfortunate about the recent renovation was as much as I thought it might do more for GM’s viability(since I thought the renovation gave it a much needed, newer look), I don’t think it’s attracted as many national chains as I though it would to it(other than Deb Shops opening a store here). FYE closed their store here in early 2008, so I don’t know if that’s a hint to come that as more chains struggle, that this mall may struggle more with keeping spaces filled, or what. I’m definitely aware that the north wing inbetween Sears and Target has usually been near vacant for as long as I can remember, other than a pizza place and a handful of other stores in that wing that closed in the early 2000s. GM was very lucky to get VCF to open in that north wing, and if you consider that wing’s history of having many vacancies, it’s a good fit for it.
I’ll also add as someone who grew up and still lives(for now) in the Chicago area, and has active knowledge of retail trends in the Chicago area, it is NOT upscale shopping centers/malls like Old Orchard, Woodfield, Northbrook, etc. that this mall competes against. It’s always been more a middle-class mall, and still is. In fact, I’d actually say the former Randhurst Mall, and Harlem-Irving Plaza was/is this mall’s main competition, and with HIP’s recent renovation and the announcement of JCPenney opening a store there in the future, it’ll be interesting to see if stores stay put at GM, or if some choose to pull out. Especially considering HIP also has done renovations and store additions of its own in very recent years, and many of the same chains have locations in both malls.
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hm
December 30th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
On one of my few visits to this mall in 2001 or 2002, we were standing in the Sears Auto store separate from the mall and someone yelled for us to turn around and look: a dark funnel cloud was touching down on it. Dozens of cars in the parking lot had their windows blown in (ours was spared). We heard later a few stores had to close for roof repair, including Victoria’s Secret.
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shopmore
December 31st, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Just to let you know that the lease plan off the GGP website that has spaces labeled “Vacant” may actually have temporary tenants occupying the space & just aren’t listed on the plan.
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Nathan Bush
January 7th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I cannot believe that LensCrafters (in one of the pics above) of all places had Sensormatic door alarms! How pathetic…
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Allan
January 7th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
One more comment about Golf Mill that I didn’t mention in my original comment about it, and only remembered now that I wanted to say: I REALLY WISH GGP had at least given the electronic sign at the corner of Golf/Milwaukee some sort of modern update, or at least had added the new logo of the mall to that sign. It’s very strange to me that they didn’t, considering they did a decent job of updating the signs with the new logo on the Milwaukee Ave. side of the mall. I’m also guessing too considering GGP’s financial problems, that it won’t occur in the immediate future, but I’d certainly would not mind a surprise and be proven wrong here.
I should add too that even though I don’t live close to this mall, I always seem(for whatever reason) to make it here on average at least once or twice every 1-2 years. So that’s why I was extra-thrilled to see Prange wrote an entry on this place.
As for Pat747’s question(since I noticed it was unanswered), the Skytron screen you mentioned in your comment was removed during the renovation that was completed over a year ago.
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Mike J.
January 21st, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Interesting piece of mall trivia…
Golf Mill had (at least up to around 2000) its own radio station! A low frequency station called Mall Radio that broadcast on either 88.3 or 88.5 fm, and that could be heard in the parking lot and on the adjacent roads!
It was just a tape of ads for stores in the mall played on a loop (”Mention this ad with your purchase and receive a 10% discount”).
I always found that cool!
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bad gramer
January 31st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
To john gallo above:
on December 18th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
when gm was built the ancor space that is today jcpenney wes a one and only branch of evenston based lords department store thay closed allmost right away. penneys took there store and exspanded it . years a go a freind of mine managed the golf mill gap the mall had had problems with high return rates, it seams that the locals wood go to woodfield or old orchard and then come do all ther returns close to home witch is what maid his store unprofitable and the gap eventrly closed there not vary long after he left that store.
Please take an English class.
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Sheila
July 1st, 2009 at 4:33 pm
We used to go to the Mill Run Theatre back in the 70’s when I was in high school. It was a long drive from the south suburbs but well worth the quality shows we used to see. Is the theatre still in operation?
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Jason
August 8th, 2009 at 8:38 am
I had to go to that mall from my store in Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi, MI in 1996 to to train a new manager of the Pretzel Time. Sears cutting right through the middle of the mall was one of the weirdest things I have seen in a mall. And I have seen many malls!
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Brumbalow
September 10th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
It should probably be mentioned that the original movie theaters for this mall (Golf Mill Theaters) were a detached unit in the SE corner of the parking lot. The building only housed 3 theaters (I think), but the main theater was massive, including balconies on either side of the projector room. Many movies were snuck into by having someone on the inside hold the back exit door open. It closed I would guess around 2000, as I do remember seeing a movie there as late as 1999. An XSport Fitness currently stands where the theaters once were. There was also a shoddy bowling alley right there, I think just to the west of the theaters.
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Robyn
September 30th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
wow am I ever dissapointed in this mall remodeling!
I used to live in Des Plaines when I was in Jr. High in 1969 and I used to shop and hang out at Golf Mill.
I thought it was the coolest “mall” and I have very fond memories of walking around and shopping OUTSIDE! I loved the diner where you could sit in a booth next to a window and people watch (in my case it was “boy watching”). I remember the chocolate candy shop also. I am planning a trip to Niles and surrounding suburbs later this year and I was anxiously planning on going back to Golf Mill and reminiscing. I saw the pictures of the shops in the ENCLOSED mall and I got very sad! It doesn’t look anything like the old Golf Mill that I remember.
It’s too bad. I understand that it probably needed to be remodeled but I don’t think it needed to be enclosed and TOTALLY changed – to be TOTALLY UNRECOGNIZABLE! I still plan on going to Golf Mill when I visit because I just have to see it for myself
(probably for the last time). I am so very sad….
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Robyn
September 30th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
To anyone that has shopped at Golf Mill in the 60’s and 70’s….
Is there ANY THING that is the same and hasn’t changed at Golf Mill?
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