Category: Illinois

One of the oldest malls in the Chicagoland area, Harlem Irving Plaza (also known as ‘the HIP’) is also one of the last independently-owned and operated regional centers in the entire country.  During its 5+ decades in existence, Harlem Irving Plaza has gone through only minor changes yet it remains extremely viable today, serving a densely populated area of inner-ring northwest suburbs and a large portion of the city of Chicago. 

Harlem Irving Plaza is located in the small island-suburb of Norridge.  Norridge, and neighboring Harwood Heights, are small incorporated communities completely surrounded by the city of Chicago, on Chicago’s far northwest side near O’Hare Airport.  Both Norridge and Harwood Heights were incorporated in 1948 as a measure to protect these areas from becoming the city of Chicago, which was quickly encroaching and about to annex these areas for itself. 

Most of the development in Norridge took place following incorporation, in the 1950s through the 1970s.  A major development in Norridge occurred with the opening of Harlem Irving Plaza in 1956.  Aptly named, Harlem Irving Plaza sits on the corner of a major intersection – N. Harlem Avenue (Route 43) and Irving Park Road (Route 19).  When the Plaza opened, it was not enclosed and consisted of 45 stores anchored by W.T. Grant, Kroger, Walgreens, Wieboldts, and Woolworth.  Not much changed at the Plaza between the mid-50s and the mid-70s as Norridge filled in and became almost completely built out. 

In 1975, as part of a larger nationwide trend of enclosing large, outdoor plazas into climate-controlled malls, the Plaza’s owners embarked on a four-year project to enclose the mall and, in the process, add a large parking deck.  The bulk of this structure is what is seen today at the site, and in 1979 Madigan’s was added as an anchor store.  In 1987, MainStreet, a short-lived subsidiary of the Federated chain, opened a discount department store on the north end of the mall; this location became Kohls in 1988 when Kohls bought the MainStreet chain.  Also in 1987-88, Carson’s replaced the Wieboldt’s as Wieboldt’s went out of business. 

The 1990s to the present have been a period of continued success for the enclosed center, with a few readjustments.  In 1996, a food court opened near the southern end of the mall, and Best Buy replaced Madigan’s.  In 2001, the center was modified again with Best Buy relocating to the parking lot and a parking structure was built on the Best Buy site.  In 2004, a popular Target located at the north end of the mall near the food court. 

Some of the design elements make Harlem Irving Plaza very similar to other urban malls with smaller footprints like Queens Center in New York City.  For one, the footprint of the center doesn’t allow for an expansive parking lot, so there are two free vertical structures to park in.  Interestingly, the parking structures are above the mall and one can enter the mall from above at several spots from the parking structure.  Also, the way Carson’s is situated at the mall allows the main corridor to go around it before it turns again and ends at Kohls.  In the main corridor in front of Carson’s there isn’t enough space for full-size stores so a series of booths are set up along this length for retailers, and they’re all full. 

The demographics at Harlem Irving Center are also more characteristic of an urban center, rather than a far-flung suburban mall.  Because the mall is one of the closest malls to the entire northwest side of the city of Chicago, much of the clientele are recent immigrants and first-generation Americans, many of whom are of Latin-American and Eastern European heritage.  The mall is also close enough to more traditional, yet older, suburbs like Niles, Park Ridge, Des Plaines, and Schiller Park, but it’s not really clear that they shop here as well. 

Take a look at the photos of Harlem Irving Plaza and its vicinity, taken in Spring 2008.

And just for fun and perspective, here’s a strip mall across the street from the top of the Harlem Irving parking structure.  You can kind of see the downtown skylne if you look closely:

Alton, Illinois is a small Mississippi River city located 15 miles north of St. Louis.  With a population of about 34,000, Alton anchors the northern extent of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area, which is the 18th largest metropolitan area in the country with almost 3 million residents. 

Alton’s history reads pretty much the same as all the other older Mississippi River towns, with a large, visible presence of core manufacturing industries which once made Alton a hub city and, for a time, even larger than St. Louis.  Much of the city, situated on steep bluffs overlooking the river, reads more like a Mark Twain novel than anything from modern-day America.  As the manufacturing industry has slowly left the Mississippi valley, the city has sort of become frozen in time.  In addition, during the mid-20th century, Alton was bypassed by the interstate highway system and lacked a freeway-grade connection to the rest of the St. Louis area until very recently, further hampering the modern economic growth other St. Louis suburbs like St. Charles and Chesterfield in Missouri have enjoyed.  Despite this, however, Alton’s economy has remained somewhat viable due to Casino gambling, antiquing, and Mississippi River tourism, and is nothing like the economic despair seen in East St. Louis and other parts of inner Metro East. 

As an anchor city for the northern-most tier of St. Louis suburbs, Alton has always been a draw for retailers and a significant suburban retail strip has developed along Illinois Route 3, the circumfrential highway which bypasses Alton on its outskirts, and US 67 north.  In 1978, a two-level regional mall was constructed near the intersection of IL 3 and US 67 on the northern edge of the city.  Alton Square Mall, which turns 30 years old in 2008, is a 630,000 square-foot regional center anchored by Macy’s, Sears, JCPenney, and 60 other shops and restaurants.  With an approximate 75 percent occupancy rate, Alton Square has had some trouble in recent years attracting coveted, popular national retailers for several reasons.

First, as mentioned above, Alton’s economy isn’t as sound as other areas in the metro and its location is inconvenient for those who are a considerable distance from the mall.  Thus, Alton Square never developed as a super-regional center like St. Clair Square, with its central location in Metro East and easy access from I-64.  Access to Alton from the rest of the metro area is improving, though.  Despite being on the Illinois side, Alton is actually farther from many of the other Illinois-side suburbs than they are to St. Louis, and only recently did ILDOT connect Alton with the St. Louis expressway system by extending IL 255 north of I-270.  In addition, MoDOT is expanding MO 367 north of I-270 toward Alton to freeway grade, giving Alton a better connection to St. Louis and the Missouri-side suburbs.  Still, Alton will probably never become destinational for St. Louis nor Metro East residents due to being up in the corner, and will probably remain regional in nature rather than super-regional.

This kind of brings us to our next point.  Competition from other St. Louis area malls and nearby retail strips, specifically in north St. Louis County, has also had an impact here at Alton Square.  The nearby Jamestown Mall, although a shell of its former self and not doing well at all today, and the retail strip along US 67 in north St. Louis County are signifcant enough to draw shoppers away from Alton.  In addition, large super-regional malls like West County Center and Saint Louis Galleria are only 30-45 minutes from Alton. 

Third, Alton Square is extremely dated.  If you looked at the pictures, you’ll see immediately that the decor, signage, and all visual aspects of the mall are from the late 1970s era.  Dark, cavernous spaces with dark, muted colors and use of dull materials like wood and tile.  Shoppers today demand the opposite of this: bright, open spaces, whitewashed shiny appearance, and sterile, sterile, sterile.  Add some clusters of bland carpeting and comfy chairs with some cherry furniture and you’re golden.  And that’s kind of what Alton Square is up to, which brings us to our third point.

Alton Square, until 2007, was owned and operated by Simon, a behemoth company which owns many malls.  Due to this, several have inevitably fallen through the cracks before they were ultimately divested by Simon, and by then it’s usually too late.  See our entry on Machesney Park Mall for a great example of this.   And we’re not just picking on Simon here.  It seems like most of the behemoth companies with very large portfolios take care of the best ones, and aren’t as proactive about upkeep at these mid-tier regionals.  So in 2007, Simon finally gave up on Alton Square and sold it to a small group of investers, which couldn’t be a better thing for the mall.  Almost immediately, the new owners began embarking on aggressive plans to update the mall so that it’s palatable for the retailers people want.  If keeping a facility viable is a chicken-and-egg situation, the question is not which comes first in order to resolve viability (ie. modernize the mall, then retailers come vs. get a few retailers to come, then modernize) but who will get the egg rolling. These new owners, being local, have a vested interest in keeping the mall from dying and becoming a blighted eyesore and being forced to replace it anyway, so they’re doing what they can to keep it viable in its current state.  In early 2008, the new owners took these plans with them to the ICSC convention in Las Vegas, and in May 2008 they began the renovations in earnest.  We wish them all the best in preserving the mall while increasing its potential to serve the community and surrounding area, rather than tearing it down and starting all over again. 

The photos here were taken in January 2002.  However, until the renovations which are occurring presently (Summer 2008) most of the mall has remained unchanged with a few exceptions.  In September 2006 Famous-Barr became Macy’s, and we all know that story, and in June 2008 the original, old-school B. Dalton is finally shutting their doors.  Let us know what you think about Alton Square, or how the renovations are going.

Evergreen Park, Illinois is an inner-ring southwest suburb of Chicago with a population of about 20,000, located about 10 miles from the Loop.  Although established as a village in 1893, most of Evergreen Park’s growth occurred during the middle of the 20th century.  This, combined with the fact that Evergreen Park is sandwiched in on three sides by Chicago and by suburbs Oak Lawn and Hometown on the fourth side, caused Evergreen Park to be built out by 1960.  As such, growth in the Village has been relatively stagnant for several decades.  In this post we will examine the interactions of very separate, racially segregated neighborhoods in close proximity and how they have affected retail offerings to present an interesting case study marrying economics, geography, and socio-spatial interaction.

Considering that the relationship between the scope of retail and place is based on a broader geographical area than one suburb (such as Evergreen Park), we have to examine the entire vicinity in terms of retail offerings, and also demographics in general.  Evergreen Park itself is middle class, almost 90 percent white, and unchanged since the 1960s.  On three sides of the village is Chicago, whose neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the village range from suburban-style nearly 100 percent white enclaves such as Mount Greenwood to very racially and economically diverse sections such as Ashburn on the north, and Beverly to the east.  Further afield, and yet not at all distant from Evergreen Park are neighborhoods like Washington Heights which are nearly 100 percent black and poverty stricken.  This melange of neighborhoods exists within very close proximity to one another; however, segregation and racism has presented many obstacles for positive interaction between them.

In terms of retail offerings, Evergreen Park is mostly residential with two important commercial corridors: 95th Street, which runs through the city from east to west and Western Avenue, which forms the eastern border of Evergreen Park and is a retail corridor shared with the city of Chicago.  The 95th Street corridor is also heavily populated with retail offerings into the city of Chicago to the east and even moreso into Oak Park and beyond to the west.  Major shopping malls in the area include Chicago Ridge Mall several miles to the west along 95th Street, Ford City Mall a few miles north in the city of Chicago, and The Plaza in Evergreen Park located where the two major retail corridors in the village intersect, at 95th Street and Western Avenue.

Evergreen Plaza opened in 1952 as an open-air shopping center developed by Arthur Rubloff, one of if not the first of its magnitude in all of Chicagoland.  It was anchored by two grocery stores (one was Jewel) with a row of shops in the middle, which was a new idea at the time.  Other stores included The Fair, a small local department store, and Woolworth’s, Lytton’s and Walgreens.  Chas A. Stevens, an upscale small department store chain based in Chicago, opened in 1962, and Carson Pirie Scott followed not long after.  In the 1970s The Fair store became Montgomery Ward.  The mall was also enclosed in 1966, and has been expanded several times including the addition of a food court in the late 1980s or early 1990s based on its decor.  Also in the early 1990s, a Silo electronics location was replaced with Circuit City.

Changes since 2000 have led to high turnover at Evergreen Plaza.  Montgomery Ward closed its four-story anchor in 2001 as the whole chain went under, leaving a huge vacancy near the north end of the mall.  Circuit City and Walgreens both closed in 2005; Walgreens was replaced by Office Depot shortly thereafter.  Also in 2005, National Wholesale Liquidators, an east-coast based high volume discounter, took two floors of the former Wards space.  Upon their arrival, the NWL logo was emblazoned on the mall’s once-iconic watertower, which one sported the mall’s “e” logo with the background image of an evergreen tree.

In addition to these changes, the mall’s demographic base has shifted dramatically over the course of its existence.  When it opened in 1952, it was the premier shopping center in the Chicagoland area and was a destination mall for many years, courting shoppers from all over the area.  However, as other, bigger malls opened in the area, The Plaza’s niche started to fade.  In 1981, Chicago Ridge Mall opened just five miles west of the Plaza along the same 95th Street retail corridor.  While this was the most direct blow to The Plaza’s dominance, other south-suburban malls such as River Oaks Center remodeled and enclosed in 1994, and Orland Square also remodeled in the late 1990s and early 2000s, positioning itself as the dominant tier-A mall for all of south and southwest Chicagoland. 

Even indirectly, as the suburbs moved outward from the city so too did the wealth, leaving The Plaza a bit out of sorts.  As such, The Plaza acquired a new niche catering heavily to the black population living on the south side of Chicago and surrounding suburbs.  As The Plaza is literally across the street from Chicago, the convenience the center provides these customers is immeasurable, since Ford City Mall is the only mall situated in the City on the south side.  Interestingly, very few customers of The Plaza today appear to come from Evergreen Park or Oak Lawn, spreading a dichotomy of separateness which interestingly segregates most residents of Evergreen Park from their own mall.

Despite changing times and competition, Evergreen Plaza remains a very popular destination.  A lot has changed over the years, but in our opinion this only adds to our fascination with this mall.  The decor is decidedly dated on the inside; however, numerous attempts have been made to update the outside facade, especially facing Western Avenue.  The mall itself is also rather long and winding, extending from Office Depot in the north to Carson’s on the south end.  The center court is an impressively dark, cavernous Gruen-esque space, and also the point where the mall sprouts a basement level which continues on from center court to Carson’s; another smaller basement level with service-oriented shops is located in the original north corridor near Office Depot.  The neon-laced food court, which was added sometime in the 1980s or 1990s, also exists in the basement, and a sizeable side hallway extends past the food court culminating in an escalator up to another side hallway on the upper level – an interesting, quirky feature.  Also, the NWL (former Wards) anchor has a water tower, and the mall features a large office tower at the south end.  Until recently, a large parking deck existed between Carson’s and NWL and a popular, problem-infested movie theatre existed on the property; both were recently razed. 

We hope the mall wasn’t damaged in the recent holiday decorations fire, which also sadly closed the mall for two days during December 2007.

Take a look at the pictures featured here; they were taken in September 2007.  Feel free to add your own comments and stories, or send us some retro photos of this or any mall. 

UPDATE 1/13/08: Another one bites the dust.  Coincidentally, the very next day after we posted this mall, news surfaced about its potential demise and redevelopment.  According to this recent article in the Chicago Tribune, mall owners are currently looking to redevelop the mall as an open-air center, replacing the existing enclosed structure which hasn’t changed much in over 40 years.  The ostensible goal of the renovation is to reinvigorate the center to its former glory, with an emphasis on returning ‘upscale’ stores to the center as were present in its earlier days.  Also take a look at some vintage photos of the mall on the Tribune’s site.  In addition, the article glosses over the fact that NWL’s lease expires in April, though makes no mention of the lease being renewed or the store closing.  In our opinion, the former Wards four-level behemoth anchor, at 225,000 square feet, could never be fully leased as one store again.  It will either have to be parceled out somehow to box stores, or razed altogether for new purposes.  The lease expiry is probably an ominous hint of things to come. 

Most of our retail “fall from glory” tales are variations on the same theme.  Larger, more modern competition swoops in and leaves behind a swath of older retail in the dust.  Literally.  This particular story is no exception; however, it’s a lot more complicated (and interesting) than that, at least from a retail history standpoint.  Apparently if you kick a retail center down once, it dies, but if you kick it down twice, it reinvents itself completely to be somewhat immune.

Waukegan, Illinois is one of several older satellite gateway cities orbiting the periphery of greater Chicago.  Located 40 miles north of downtown Chicago, the city has grown to house nearly 100,00 residents today.  Much like Gary, Hammond, Joliet, Aurora, Elgin, and arguably others like it, these cities grew up not necessarily as post-war suburbs of Chicago, but in tandem with Chicago from the early 19th century onward.  Unlike the suburban post-war boomtown suburbs of Schaumburg, Gurnee, Orland Park, and countless others which all barely existed before the mid-20th century suburban explosion, these gateway cities have a history more common with that of Chicago’s in the manufacturing era a century previous. 

Understanding this is important because it helps us pinpoint how suburban sprawl has impacted these older gateway cities.  Modern sprawl has filled in the rural pockets in between these cities and Chicago with relatively affluent bedroom communities, complete with cookie-cutter housing development and strip retail everywhere.  In response, these older anchor cities became fallow during the latter part of the 20th century.  While cities adjacent to Waukegan in northern Lake County such as Gurnee have benefitted from the massively explosive post-war sprawl to have large-scale amusement parks, huge malls and more, cities like Waukegan, Elgin, Joliet, and Aurora have quietly rusted away behind the scenes as if embattled in a forgotten identity crisis. 

Left out of the picture, these anchor cities began creating suburban developments of their own.  In Joliet, Elgin and Aurora, suburban sprawl accounts for much of the city’s land area today, and because these cities benefit from having room to grow and farmland to gobble this process will continue unabated until it reaches some sort of natural break, or demand wanes.  Cities like Gary, Hammond, and Waukegan, however, weren’t so fortunate.  Each of these cities has had almost no room to build out to keep up with the trend of suburbanization, due to being directly up against Lake Michigan on one side and against other established cities of suburban sprawl on the other.  By the time they were willing to get in the game, it was almost too late.  Also consider these cities are older on the whole, and their residents’ egress caused the suburban sprawlburgs to happen in the first place, and you have a vicious cycle of simultaneously more sprawl in the new suburbs and more blight in the older cities’ cores.  In Waukegan’s case, it is a pall on the wealthy suburbia that makes up the rest of Lake County. 

Waukegan did, however, make some attempts to join the sprawl-party in the mid-20th century.  It gobbled up as much farmland as it could on the southwest side of the city, the only side not already occupied by something else.  There it expanded quite far, creating the same young cul-de-sac subdivisions as everywhere else, and even two enclosed malls.  The first of these opened in the 1960s (conflicting sources list different years) along Belvidere Road (Hwy 120), a fast growing strip of retail and services at the time.  Rather appropriately, it was named Belvidere Mall.

When Belvidere Mall opened it was anchored by a large Montgomery Ward and, for a time, was the only large enclosed mall along the Lake Michigan shoreline between Milwaukee and Chicago.  However, Belvidere Mall enjoyed only a modicum of popularity due to competition in the form of a much larger super-regional mall which opened just up the street in 1971. Lakehurst Mall opened immediately successful and at over one million square feet with three behemoth anchors, outsized most other shopping venues in northern Chicagoland and the surrounding areas of Wisconsin.  Furthermore, it was better situated than smaller Belvidere Mall, two miles away.  Lakehurst was located adjacent to the junction of the Tri-State Tollway (I-294), US 41, Waukegan Road (IL 43) and Belvidere Road (Hwy 120).  It was also situated in one of the only “modern” areas of Waukegan, far from the urban, decaying, and industrial downtown core.  In addition to all that, Lakehurst was designed to be as modern as possible itself (for the 1970s) by famed retail architect Victor Gruen.

As the 1970s progressed, Lakehurst Mall achieved further dominance under the city of Waukegan and Lake County’s master plans, which called for ancillary retail and residential areas to be built along the Lakehurst ring road adjacent to the mall.  These included strip convenience centers, many apartment complexes, chain restaurants, and family fun centers.  Although placing these activities together is common now, it was a relatively new idea in the early 1970s and the Lakehurst model was something of a pioneer for this type of development. 

In contrast, all through the 1970s and into the 1980s, sales at Belvidere Mall slumped as it could not keep up with its more popular sibling down the road.  In 1988, the bottom fell out at Belvidere Mall and it lost its most important anchor, Montgomery Ward, to Lakehurst Mall in order to fill the Wieboldt’s vacancy after the chain went under.  From that point on, and arguably from a point long before that, Belvidere Mall ceased to be of much importance as a regional destination.

Complicating matters further, the retail dynamic in and around Waukegan changed more dramatically in 1991 when the Mills Corporation opened a newer, even larger mall than Lakehurst in the adjacent sprawlburg of Gurnee across from an already well-established Six Flags amusement park.  The 1.8 million square foot Gurnee Mills was a huge success, and drew shoppers from all over southeastern Wisconsin, northeastern Illinois and beyond because it was a new hybridized format of enclosed mall with trendy, popular outlet stores.  Gurnee Mills didn’t didn’t feel like an outlet mall, however, so sales skyrocketed and the Mills corporation went on to build many more malls like it across North America.  Immediately following Gurnee Mills’ opening, a slew of retail boxes and strip centers sprang up around it, mostly along Grand Avenue (IL 120), just a few miles north of Lakehurst and Belvidere Malls. 

Following the opening of Gurnee Mills, the tables turned on Lakehurst Mall, and many stores and even anchors jumped ship as profits sank during the 1990s.  By the end of that decade, Lakehurst was just a shadow of its’ former self.  In fact, most of the mall structure closed permanently in 2001, with the Carson Pirie Scott anchor hanging on until January 2004.  The whole thing was demolished soon after, and after much debate about what to do with the site it was replaced with a rather bland yet useful strip center development featuring a Wal-Mart called Fountain Square of Waukegan.

As for Belvidere Mall, it ironically weathered the second competitive blow of Gurnee Mills in 1991 far better than it had Lakehurst Mall in 1971.  Throughout the 1990s, following the 1988 departure of Montgomery Ward, Belvidere Mall repositioned itself to be ancillary-on-purpose, which is often a boon for these smaller, much older enclosed centers, especially when encroached upon by more popular competition.  A Builders Square home improvement center replaced the vacated Wards soon after Wards fled to Lakehurst, and the same spot quickly became a Home Depot following the demise of the Builders Square chain in 1998.  Also in 1998, the mall revamped its image with a new name of Belvidere Discount Mall, and not only attracted discount retailers, but local ethnic/hispanic ones as well.  As the city of Waukegan is 50 percent hispanic, and a large hispanic population resides in several other cities in northeast Lake County, the mall serves an underrepresented population and thus has carved out its own niche, unaffected by the woes of traditional retail competition.

Ironically, Belvidere Mall was hit not once, but twice, and the second blow allowed it to stay in the game, albeit a far cry from the traditional enclosed mall it opened as over four decades ago.  The photo set included here was shot in 2001.  Make sure to check out the interesting shops, the antique laundromat, and the cinema.  Has the mall changed significantly since?  Any other stories or information to tell?  What was Belvidere Mall like during its heyday? 

Update 11/15/07: John G. has sent once again sent us some great vintage pictures.  Enjoy them.

With a population of 112,000 and a metro statistical area population of 350,000, Peoria typifies working-class middle America.  In fact, Peoria was often a test market for many national media products.  The saying “That won’t play in Peoria” referred to this testing, and how Peoria was commonly used as a benchmark for media standards in music, movies, and television intended for a national market. 

Northwoods Mall, Peoria’s only enclosed mall, opened in 1973 along War Memorial Drive near Interstate 74.  In many ways, Northwoods Mall also typifies mid-tier malls in middle America.  It is a two-level straight shot between anchors Sears and JCPenney, with a Macy’s at center court which was a Famous-Barr location until September 2006.  Many national mid-tier mall chains such as Spencer’s, Waldenbooks, American Eagle, Abercrombie, and Victoria’s Secret are represented.  Northwoods has always been successful and asserted dominance over the other enclosed mall in the Peoria metro area, Pekin Mall, which closed after years of struggling in 2003. 

However, a large, new lifestyle center also opened in 2003 a few miles north of Northwoods, called The Shoppes at Grande Prairie, which features Bergner’s as well as Dick’s Sporting Goods, Linens ‘n Things, Gordman’s and Borders.  Unfortunately for Northwoods, many of the stores at Grande Prairie generally trend more upscale and features retailers such as J. Jill, Ann Taylor Loft, Charlotte Russe, Banana Republic, Sharper Image, and several popular chain eateries.  Grande Prairie is also larger than Northwoods at 850,000 square feet versus Northwood’s 700,000.     

Northwoods Mall’s decor went over 30 years without a major renovation, finally culminating in a major overhaul of the mall during most of 2005.  The renovation was most likely sparked, I suspect, to keep up with The Shoppes at Grande Prairie.  Though meticulously maintained, many elements harkened back to the mall’s 1970s roots, most notably the grand center court with the huge 1970s silver light fixtures hanging from the raised ceiling.  In February 2005, Simon announced Northwoods would be renovated that year, including new light fixtures, new flooring, and couches with easy chairs placed at both ends of the mall.  Outside, all mall entrances were refurbished and so were the parking lot and landscaping.  The renovation was complete in October of that year, ending an era of visible retail history in Peoria.

I visited Northwoods in January 2002 (pre-renovation) and took the pictures featured here.  Let us know more about the mall’s history or comment on how the renovation looks, as we haven’t seen it yet.