Randhurst Mall
Encyclopedia
Randhurst Mall, previously known as Randhurst Center or simply Randhurst, was a shopping mall
that was located at the corner of Rand Road (U.S. Route 12
) and Elmhurst Road (IL Route 83) in Mount Prospect
, Illinois
. The mall took its name from combining the names of these two roads. The original owner of the mall was the Randhurst Corporation (a joint venture
of Carson Pirie Scott
, Wieboldt's
, and Montgomery Ward
); the land is currently owned by Casto Lifestyle Properties. At the time of its 1962 opening, it was the first enclosed regional mall in the Chicago area and the largest enclosed air-conditioned space in the United States
. At its 2008 closure, the mall was anchored by Bed Bath & Beyond
, Carson Pirie Scott, and Costco
. The mall has been demolished and is being rebuilt as a lifestyle center
; the anchors are to remain as part of the new development.
expansion into Skokie at the new Old Orchard Shopping Center, in 1958 Carson Pirie Scott secured an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) lot in Mount Prospect for purposes of building a shopping mall. Studies showed the mall would have a service area of 300,000, with another 100,000 expected by 1965. By 1959, the department stores Wieboldt's and Montgomery Ward had created a joint venture
with Carson Pirie Scott, named the Randhurst Corporation. Instead of using the Montgomery Ward nameplate, however, Montgomery Ward would use the nameplate of their subsidiary brand, The Fair Department Store (aka "the Fair"), on their anchor store.
Randhurst was designed by Victor Gruen
, a pioneer of modern shopping mall design. Unlike most shopping malls of the time, which were built in a straight line between two anchoring department stores, Gruen's design was shaped like an equilateral triangle, with an anchoring department store at each angle. Additional stores lined the sides of the triangle on two levels: a conventional level (termed the "mezzanine" level), continuous with the first floors of the anchor stores, and a level located half a floor below the first level (termed the "bazaar" level), located down a flight of stairs facing the first level. A floor of offices occupied the level above this "subfloor" of stores. A ring of clerestory
windows was mounted in a domed area over the center of the mall; mounted just inside these windows were numerous stained glass windows
in various oval and round shapes, oriented in such a way as to cast beams of colored light into the mall itself. As the mall was built at the height of the Cold War
, it included a fallout shelter
big enough to hold every citizen of Mount Prospect.
Thus, at the time of its 1962 opening, the 1400000 sq ft (130,064.3 m²) Randhurst had three major department store
anchors: Wieboldt's, Carson Pirie Scott, and the Fair. All three anchors had two above-ground floors and a full basement
. Of the three anchors, the Carson Pirie Scott anchor was the most distinctive, featuring turquoise
-colored accents at the entrances and multi-colored lights around its perimeter. Other stores included Baskins, Charles A. Stevens, Jewel Food Stores
, S.S. Kresge
, and Woolworth's. In 1963, the Randhurst Fair store would be the first Fair store to be renamed as a Montgomery Ward store; Montgomery Ward also built an auto service center at the perimeter of the mall. Randhurst would retain this configuration well into the 1980s.
acquired Randhurst from the Randhurst Corporation. In 1985, Rouse converted the upper sub-level of offices into a food court
- one of the first in the Chicago area - and more retail space; a complete conventional second floor of retail space would be constructed by 1990. The "subfloor" of stores was also made larger and easier to access. In 1987, the entire Wieboldt's chain went bankrupt and closed their stores; Peoria, Illinois
-based Bergner's
acquired the empty Randhurst location. Shortly thereafter, Elgin
-based specialty department store Joseph Spiess built a minor anchor, 61000 sq ft (5,667.1 m²) next to the Wieboldt's/Bergner's anchor, and MainStreet
added another minor anchor near the Montgomery Ward anchor (just before the chain was acquired by Kohl's
). Spiess expanded too rapidly and too late for the market; as a consequence of this, the chain went bankrupt, and the store at Randhurst closed on January 31, 1992.
briefly occupied the Spiess anchor, until Circuit City and Old Navy
took over the space in 1995; meanwhile, a new Filene's Basement
minor anchor occupied the majority of the "bazaar" level. This brought Randhurst to its greatest level of occupancy ever - three major anchors and four minor anchors - and an all-time peak of 1400000 sq ft (130,064.3 m²) of retail space.
The next ten years, however, would be much more difficult for Randhurst. The construction and expansion of multiple shopping malls in the area, especially the improvements to Woodfield Mall
in nearby Schaumburg
, devastated Randhurst's shopping base, as did the local population's general change in shopping tastes. The mall's management tried to compensate by updating the mall's decor and adding new Jewel-Osco and Home Depot stores at the perimeter of the mall (the Home Depot replacing the old Randhurst Ice Arena
, Wards Auto Center and a Child World
Store); despite this, foot traffic fell, and stores began disappearing from the mall at a rapid rate. This included the Filene's Basement minor anchor, which closed in 1999 (along with three other Chicago-area Filene's Basement stores).
, opened in north suburban Deer Park
in 2000. This open-air shopping center became increasingly popular and may have attracted patrons who would have otherwise traveled to Randhurst or nearby Woodfield
. Meanwhile, Randhurst suffered the loss of its JCPenney and Montgomery Ward anchors within months of each other in 2001. JCPenney had labeled the Randhurst store as an "underperformer," and therefore closed their location as they did many other "underperforming" locations. The Montgomery Ward store at Randhurst had undergone a remodeling and rebranding (as "Wards") program in 2000 as part of a chain-wide "last ditch" effort to revive the brand; when this failed, Montgomery Ward closed their entire chain of stores and went out of business. In 2003, Kohl's moved its store to a space formerly occupied by Venture
near the corner of Elmhurst Road and Dempster Street on the south end of Mount Prospect. Following the sudden departure of these three anchor tenants, many stores inside the mall closed as well. The devastating loss of numerous tenants and anchors led many to believe that Randhurst was about to become a dead mall
.
In 2004, some revitalization did occur for the mall, as a grand remodeling and repositioning scheme for the mall was put in motion. The former JCPenney and Kohl's anchors were demolished to build a new 160000 sq ft (14,864.5 m²) Costco anchor with no entry to the mall proper. Similarly, the former Montgomery Ward anchor was mostly torn down to create a grand new "promenade" entrance for the mall. Unfortunately, no upscale stores ever moved into the new addition, except for an Applebee's
which moved from another section of the mall. However, unlike its previous home, which had both exterior and interior entrances, the new location was serviced by an outdoor entrance exclusively. A Buffalo Wild Wings
was built on an outlot close to Carson's and the Jewel. Circuit City closed in 2005, and Old Navy moved to nearby Arlington Heights
, all in the midst of the new construction. Bed Bath & Beyond and Steve & Barry's
quickly took their places - Bed Bath & Beyond moved into the former Circuit City retail space, while Steve & Barry's opened in the former Applebee's restaurant
and Old Navy spaces. The Gruen design had been partially destroyed, and the renovation only helped temporarily stem the tenant outflow.
movie theater, with 12 screens, would replace the Randhurst 16 (was General Cinema
until 2002) outparcel theater (Originally the General Cinema Fourplex (1962–1998)).The redevelopment was to begin within two years..
From that point on, Randhurst's remaining tenants - many of which were chain stores - began their exodus from the mall; some relocated nearby or in neighboring towns. Randhurst's final shopping day was Tuesday, September 30, 2008. By then, only two stores remained open inside the mall: Fashion Plus, and Your Choice Gifts. Both stores were ordered by management to be vacated by 9:00pm CST.
Demolition began in the winter of 2008/2009 with the mall offices near Carson Pirie Scott so a new loading ramp could be constructed for the department store. The mall was then gutted as it still contained hazardous asbestos insulation. By the following summer, visible demolition work had resumed. Less than eleven months after Randhurst closed, the mall's signature dome was pulled down on August 28, 2009; ending the existence of Chicagoland's first enclosed mall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNsOses-elE.
Bon-Ton Stores, Inc
announced a remodeling of the former mall's Carson Pirie Scott anchor in October 2009; which was completed in 2010. Construction of Randhurst Village began in the fall of 2009.
. Randhurst Mall closed on September 30, 2008. The Original Structure was destroyed.
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
that was located at the corner of Rand Road (U.S. Route 12
U.S. Route 12
U.S. Route 12 or US 12 is an east–west United States highway, running from Grays Harbor on the Pacific Ocean, in the state of Washington, to downtown Detroit, for almost . As a thoroughfare, it has mostly been supplanted by I-90 and I-94, but remains an important road for local travel.The...
) and Elmhurst Road (IL Route 83) in Mount Prospect
Mount Prospect, Illinois
Mount Prospect is a village in Elk Grove and Wheeling Townships in Cook County, Illinois, about northwest of downtown Chicago. As of the 2010 census, the village had a total population of 54,167.-Geography:...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. The mall took its name from combining the names of these two roads. The original owner of the mall was the Randhurst Corporation (a joint venture
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
of Carson Pirie Scott
Carson Pirie Scott
Carson Pirie Scott & Co., known informally as Carson's, is an upscale chain of department stores that have been in business for over 150 years. Their product price points are targeted to the moderate-to-upscale shopper...
, Wieboldt's
Wieboldt's
Wieboldt Stores, Inc., also known as Wieboldt's, did business as a Chicago general retailer between 1883 and 1986. It was founded in 1883 by storekeeper William A. Wieboldt. The flagship location was located on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago...
, and Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...
); the land is currently owned by Casto Lifestyle Properties. At the time of its 1962 opening, it was the first enclosed regional mall in the Chicago area and the largest enclosed air-conditioned space in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. At its 2008 closure, the mall was anchored by Bed Bath & Beyond
Bed Bath & Beyond
Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. was formed in 1971 and today operates a chain of domestic merchandise retail stores across United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. They feature mostly medium-ranged, but also a limited selection of high quality, domestic merchandise: items for the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen,...
, Carson Pirie Scott, and Costco
Costco
Costco Wholesale Corporation is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the United States. it is the third largest retailer in the United States, where it originated, and the ninth largest in the world...
. The mall has been demolished and is being rebuilt as a lifestyle center
Randhurst Village
Randhurst Village is a lifestyle center currently under construction in Mount Prospect, IL. The lifestyle center is replacing the former mall portion of Randhurst Mall and incorporates the former mall's anchor stores...
; the anchors are to remain as part of the new development.
Origins
Randhurst was born out of a desire by Carson Pirie Scott to expand their business into Chicago's northwest suburbs, an untapped market at the time. Spurred by Marshall Field'sMarshall Field's
Marshall Field & Company was a department store in Chicago, Illinois that grew to become a major chain before being acquired by Macy's Inc...
expansion into Skokie at the new Old Orchard Shopping Center, in 1958 Carson Pirie Scott secured an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) lot in Mount Prospect for purposes of building a shopping mall. Studies showed the mall would have a service area of 300,000, with another 100,000 expected by 1965. By 1959, the department stores Wieboldt's and Montgomery Ward had created a joint venture
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
with Carson Pirie Scott, named the Randhurst Corporation. Instead of using the Montgomery Ward nameplate, however, Montgomery Ward would use the nameplate of their subsidiary brand, The Fair Department Store (aka "the Fair"), on their anchor store.
Randhurst was designed by Victor Gruen
Victor Gruen
Victor David Gruen, born Viktor David Grünbaum , was an Austrian-born commercial architect best known as a pioneer in the design of shopping malls in the United States.- Biography :...
, a pioneer of modern shopping mall design. Unlike most shopping malls of the time, which were built in a straight line between two anchoring department stores, Gruen's design was shaped like an equilateral triangle, with an anchoring department store at each angle. Additional stores lined the sides of the triangle on two levels: a conventional level (termed the "mezzanine" level), continuous with the first floors of the anchor stores, and a level located half a floor below the first level (termed the "bazaar" level), located down a flight of stairs facing the first level. A floor of offices occupied the level above this "subfloor" of stores. A ring of clerestory
Clerestory
Clerestory is an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows...
windows was mounted in a domed area over the center of the mall; mounted just inside these windows were numerous stained glass windows
Stained Glass Windows
Stained Glass Windows was an early broadcast television program, broadcast on early Sunday evenings on the ABC network. The program was a religious broadcast, hosted by the Reverend Everett Parker....
in various oval and round shapes, oriented in such a way as to cast beams of colored light into the mall itself. As the mall was built at the height of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, it included a fallout shelter
Fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
big enough to hold every citizen of Mount Prospect.
Thus, at the time of its 1962 opening, the 1400000 sq ft (130,064.3 m²) Randhurst had three major department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
anchors: Wieboldt's, Carson Pirie Scott, and the Fair. All three anchors had two above-ground floors and a full basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
. Of the three anchors, the Carson Pirie Scott anchor was the most distinctive, featuring turquoise
Turquoise
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl648·4. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue...
-colored accents at the entrances and multi-colored lights around its perimeter. Other stores included Baskins, Charles A. Stevens, Jewel Food Stores
Jewel (supermarket)
Jewel-Osco is a supermarket chain headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Jewel-Osco has 182 stores across northern, central, and western Illinois; eastern Iowa; and portions of northwest Indiana.Jewel-Osco and Jewel are currently wholly owned subsidiaries of Eden Prairie,...
, S.S. Kresge
Kmart
Kmart, sometimes styled as "K-Mart," is a chain of discount department stores. The chain acquired Sears in 2005, forming a new corporation under the name Sears Holdings Corporation. The company was founded in 1962 and is the third largest discount store chain in the world, behind Wal-Mart and...
, and Woolworth's. In 1963, the Randhurst Fair store would be the first Fair store to be renamed as a Montgomery Ward store; Montgomery Ward also built an auto service center at the perimeter of the mall. Randhurst would retain this configuration well into the 1980s.
1980s
In 1981, The Rouse CompanyThe Rouse Company
The Rouse Company, founded by James W. Rouse in 1939, was a publicly held shopping mall and community developer from 1956 until 2004, when General Growth Properties Inc...
acquired Randhurst from the Randhurst Corporation. In 1985, Rouse converted the upper sub-level of offices into a food court
Food court
A food court is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dining. Food courts may be found in shopping malls and airports, and in various regions may be a standalone development...
- one of the first in the Chicago area - and more retail space; a complete conventional second floor of retail space would be constructed by 1990. The "subfloor" of stores was also made larger and easier to access. In 1987, the entire Wieboldt's chain went bankrupt and closed their stores; Peoria, Illinois
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, in the United States. It is named after the Peoria tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city was the seventh-most populated in Illinois, with a population of 115,007, and is the third-most populated...
-based Bergner's
Bergner's
Bergner's is a major department store in central and northern Illinois, established in 1889 in Peoria, Illinois, and offering mid-line to higher end merchandise in their largest stores. The current flagship store is located in Peoria at The Shoppes at Grande Prairie.-Beginnings:Bergner's was...
acquired the empty Randhurst location. Shortly thereafter, Elgin
Elgin, Illinois
Elgin is a city in northern Illinois located roughly northwest of Chicago on the Fox River. Most of Elgin lies within Kane County, Illinois, with a portion in Cook County, Illinois...
-based specialty department store Joseph Spiess built a minor anchor, 61000 sq ft (5,667.1 m²) next to the Wieboldt's/Bergner's anchor, and MainStreet
MainStreet
MainStreet was a department store chain based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The chain was launched in November 1983 by Federated Department Stores . Throughout the 1980s, the chain expanded to twenty-nine stores in Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota...
added another minor anchor near the Montgomery Ward anchor (just before the chain was acquired by Kohl's
Kohl's
Kohl's Corporation is an American department store chain headquartered in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, operating , 1,089 stores in 49 states. In 1998, it entered the S&P 500 list, and is also listed in the Fortune 500...
). Spiess expanded too rapidly and too late for the market; as a consequence of this, the chain went bankrupt, and the store at Randhurst closed on January 31, 1992.
1990s
In 1990, Bergner's - which had acquired Carson Pirie Scott in 1989 - closed their Randhurst store, allowing the Carson Pirie Scott anchor to move into the grander ex-Wieboldt's building while JCPenney took over the former Carson Pirie Scott anchor. Wickes FurnitureWickes Furniture
Wickes Furniture, owned by Sun Capital Partners, was a privately held chain of furniture stores based in Wheeling, Illinois. The company was founded in 1971 with a showroom in Fridley, Minnesota, and at its peak operated 43 stores in California, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, and Oregon.The company,...
briefly occupied the Spiess anchor, until Circuit City and Old Navy
Old Navy
Old Navy is an American clothing brand as well as a chain of stores owned by Gap, Inc., with corporate operations in San Francisco and San Bruno, California. It is one of the first major corporations to house headquarters in the new Mission Bay district of San Francisco.Gap, Inc. was run by...
took over the space in 1995; meanwhile, a new Filene's Basement
Filene's Basement
Filene's Basement, also called The Basement, is a Massachusetts-based chain of department stores which was owned by Retail Ventures, Inc. until April 2009 when it was sold to Syms....
minor anchor occupied the majority of the "bazaar" level. This brought Randhurst to its greatest level of occupancy ever - three major anchors and four minor anchors - and an all-time peak of 1400000 sq ft (130,064.3 m²) of retail space.
The next ten years, however, would be much more difficult for Randhurst. The construction and expansion of multiple shopping malls in the area, especially the improvements to Woodfield Mall
Woodfield Mall
Woodfield Mall is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall located in the northwest Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois, United States, at the intersection of Golf Road and Illinois Route 53....
in nearby Schaumburg
Schaumburg, Illinois
Schaumburg is a city located in Cook County in northeastern Illinois. A common misspelling of the city name is Schaumberg, a spelling which persists on some modern maps. Schaumburg is located just under northwest of downtown Chicago and approximately northwest of O'Hare International Airport. As...
, devastated Randhurst's shopping base, as did the local population's general change in shopping tastes. The mall's management tried to compensate by updating the mall's decor and adding new Jewel-Osco and Home Depot stores at the perimeter of the mall (the Home Depot replacing the old Randhurst Ice Arena
Randhurst Ice Arena
The Randhurst Ice Arena was an indoor arena located in Mount Prospect, Illinois. The arena, which sat about 2,000 people, was the part-time home of the Chicago Cougars of the World Hockey Association from 1974-1975. During the 1974 Avco Cup playoffs, the Cougars regular home, the International...
, Wards Auto Center and a Child World
Child World
Child World was an American chain of toy stores that was founded in Avon, Massachusetts in 1970. Child World once boasted 182 stores and revenues of approximately $830 million annually...
Store); despite this, foot traffic fell, and stores began disappearing from the mall at a rapid rate. This included the Filene's Basement minor anchor, which closed in 1999 (along with three other Chicago-area Filene's Basement stores).
2000s
The problems for Randhurst continued as one of Chicago's first lifestyle centers, Deer Park Town CenterDeer Park Town Center
Deer Park Town Center is an upscale lifestyle center in the Chicago suburb of Deer Park, Illinois, situated at the southwest corner of U.S. Highway 12 and Long Grove Road, just north of Lake Cook Road...
, opened in north suburban Deer Park
Deer Park, Illinois
Deer Park is an affluent village in Lake and Cook Counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. The population was 3,200 at the 2010 census. The village is one of the few left in the Chicago area that enjoy a green belt which is bordered by two large natural areas providing outdoor recreation and open...
in 2000. This open-air shopping center became increasingly popular and may have attracted patrons who would have otherwise traveled to Randhurst or nearby Woodfield
Woodfield Mall
Woodfield Mall is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall located in the northwest Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois, United States, at the intersection of Golf Road and Illinois Route 53....
. Meanwhile, Randhurst suffered the loss of its JCPenney and Montgomery Ward anchors within months of each other in 2001. JCPenney had labeled the Randhurst store as an "underperformer," and therefore closed their location as they did many other "underperforming" locations. The Montgomery Ward store at Randhurst had undergone a remodeling and rebranding (as "Wards") program in 2000 as part of a chain-wide "last ditch" effort to revive the brand; when this failed, Montgomery Ward closed their entire chain of stores and went out of business. In 2003, Kohl's moved its store to a space formerly occupied by Venture
Venture Stores
Venture Stores, Inc., was a chain of retail stores that operated in the American Midwest. The company operated over 70 stores with major market share in St. Louis, Chicago and Kansas City, being headquartered in the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon, Missouri....
near the corner of Elmhurst Road and Dempster Street on the south end of Mount Prospect. Following the sudden departure of these three anchor tenants, many stores inside the mall closed as well. The devastating loss of numerous tenants and anchors led many to believe that Randhurst was about to become a dead mall
Dead mall
A dead mall or greyfield is a shopping mall with a high vacancy rate or a low consumer traffic level, or that is dated or deteriorating in some manner. Many malls in the United States are considered "dead" when they have no surviving anchor store or successor that could serve as an entry into or...
.
In 2004, some revitalization did occur for the mall, as a grand remodeling and repositioning scheme for the mall was put in motion. The former JCPenney and Kohl's anchors were demolished to build a new 160000 sq ft (14,864.5 m²) Costco anchor with no entry to the mall proper. Similarly, the former Montgomery Ward anchor was mostly torn down to create a grand new "promenade" entrance for the mall. Unfortunately, no upscale stores ever moved into the new addition, except for an Applebee's
Applebee's
Applebee’s International, Inc., is an American company which develops, franchises, and operates the Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar restaurant chain. As of September 2011, there were 2,010 restaurants operating system-wide in the United States, one U.S. territory and 14 other countries...
which moved from another section of the mall. However, unlike its previous home, which had both exterior and interior entrances, the new location was serviced by an outdoor entrance exclusively. A Buffalo Wild Wings
Buffalo Wild Wings
Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar is a casual dining restaurant and sports bar franchise in the United States that is known for its Buffalo wings.-History:...
was built on an outlot close to Carson's and the Jewel. Circuit City closed in 2005, and Old Navy moved to nearby Arlington Heights
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Arlington Heights is a village in Cook and Lake counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. A suburb of Chicago, it lies about 25 miles northwest of the city's downtown. The population was 75,101 at the 2010 census....
, all in the midst of the new construction. Bed Bath & Beyond and Steve & Barry's
Steve & Barry's
Steve & Barry's was an American retail clothing chain, featuring casual apparel. By mid-2008, the chain operated 276 stores in 39 states. The company was headquartered in Port Washington, New York. The company liquidated all of its stores throughout 2008....
quickly took their places - Bed Bath & Beyond moved into the former Circuit City retail space, while Steve & Barry's opened in the former Applebee's restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
and Old Navy spaces. The Gruen design had been partially destroyed, and the renovation only helped temporarily stem the tenant outflow.
Redevelopment
In April 2007, the village of Mount Prospect approved a plan which included the demolition of the core of Randhurst Mall (as well as the remainder of the former Wards) and its conversion into a lifestyle center. In place of the mall would be apartments and a hotel located above new retail buildings; the anchors, however, would remain standing and be integrated into the new development. The mall's basement would be converted into parking for the apartments. A new AMCAMC Theatres
AMC Theatres , officially known as AMC Entertainment, Inc., is the second largest movie theater chain in North America with 5,325 screens, second only to Regal Entertainment Group, and one of the United States's four national cinema chains AMC Theatres (American Multi-Cinema), officially known as...
movie theater, with 12 screens, would replace the Randhurst 16 (was General Cinema
General Cinema Corporation
General Cinema was a nationwide chain of movie theaters that operated from 1935 until 2002. The theater chain, in its prime, operated approximately 621 screens, some of which were the first cinemas certified by THX. Its mascot was Popcorn Bob and his Candy Band, which graced the company's policy...
until 2002) outparcel theater (Originally the General Cinema Fourplex (1962–1998)).The redevelopment was to begin within two years..
From that point on, Randhurst's remaining tenants - many of which were chain stores - began their exodus from the mall; some relocated nearby or in neighboring towns. Randhurst's final shopping day was Tuesday, September 30, 2008. By then, only two stores remained open inside the mall: Fashion Plus, and Your Choice Gifts. Both stores were ordered by management to be vacated by 9:00pm CST.
Demolition began in the winter of 2008/2009 with the mall offices near Carson Pirie Scott so a new loading ramp could be constructed for the department store. The mall was then gutted as it still contained hazardous asbestos insulation. By the following summer, visible demolition work had resumed. Less than eleven months after Randhurst closed, the mall's signature dome was pulled down on August 28, 2009; ending the existence of Chicagoland's first enclosed mall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNsOses-elE.
Bon-Ton Stores, Inc
The Bon-Ton
The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. is a regional department store company based in York, Pennsylvania, chiefly operating 275 stores, including 11 furniture galleries, in 23 states throughout the northern United States. Stores carrying its namesake nameplate serve the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions of...
announced a remodeling of the former mall's Carson Pirie Scott anchor in October 2009; which was completed in 2010. Construction of Randhurst Village began in the fall of 2009.
Redevelopment 2011
As of November 2011, Randhurst Mall has been redeveloped to Randhurst VillageRandhurst Village
Randhurst Village is a lifestyle center currently under construction in Mount Prospect, IL. The lifestyle center is replacing the former mall portion of Randhurst Mall and incorporates the former mall's anchor stores...
. Randhurst Mall closed on September 30, 2008. The Original Structure was destroyed.