Kristel 75
01-11-2008, 11:56 AM
It looks like Evergreen Plaza may be sold. Which wouldn't be a bad thing. Though, I'll miss Everblack when it happens.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri_evergreenjan11,1,3319596.story
Evergreen Plaza mall may be sold, bringing change in stores and customer demographics
Retail center has lost sheen over the years as chain stores left and demographics changed
By Mary Ellen Podmolik | Special to the Tribune
January 11, 2008
A customer of Evergreen Plaza for almost 40 years and a store owner there for the past 15 months, Ann Baker likes to think of the shopping center as her mall.
She has shopped at Evergreen Plaza through the changes, as regional and national chain stores closed, some to be replaced by local businesses, as the mall's customer base shifted to being significantly African-American, and as the mall's owners took steps to spruce up the aging property.
In the fall of 2006 she decided to take advantage of those trends and relocated her African-American children's hair salon from 104th Street and Western Avenue into the mall, to the same space where she used to buy Buster Brown shoes for her children.
And she doesn't regret the move, since sales at Ann's Tots 'N Teens Hair Salon have been "wonderful."
But the next step of likely changes to the mall, now dubbed The Plaza, are ones that give Baker pause.
Owners of the mall, one of the area's few large-scale shopping centers catering to the African-American market, are looking for new financial partners or an outright sale of the property, with the goal of redeveloping much of the 30-acre site into an open-air center filled with national tenants.
"If they change things, I'd like my little corner to stay," Baker said. "It's been a pleasure to see black-owned businesses, and the businesses are up to par. I thought it was nice that it wasn't all white-owned businesses, that since it was us spending the money, we were spending it with each other."
A redevelopment would bring in very different kinds of stores with the goal of attracting a much wider, more affluent audience. The result could mean significant demographic change, with many of the area's white consumers shopping alongside African-Americans.
"You'd hate to lose that [local] flavor, but a developer that wants to tap into the demographics and the money surrounding the mall, they have to create more of those national stores that can completely broaden the base of the demographic," said Bruce Provo, president of Provo Group Inc., a Kansas City firm that has an equity interest in and manages the mall. "I think in five years it would be a very diversified mix [of customers.]"
Opened in 1952 by Chicago real estate developer Arthur Rubloff and still owned by the original group of partners, Evergreen Plaza Shopping Center was billed as the first major regional shopping center in the country. It expanded over the years, was enclosed in the 1960s and thrived in its densely populated location, attracting suburbanites as well as Chicago residents who liked the idea of so many stores under one roof.
"It's got a great history, but history doesn't always pay the bills," said Evergreen Park Mayor James J. Sexton, who favors a redevelopment but would like to see Carson's, which generates $30 million in annual sales, remain. "I equate it to homes that are 50 years old. There's only so much you can do."
Demographic shifts on Chicago's South Side and the development of other malls, notably Chicago Ridge Mall and Orland Square, began to change the composition of the mall. Management began to focus on stores that would cater to urban customers rather than residents of predominantly white Evergreen Park. The theaters were closed and razed to lessen the number of teens at the center and make the mall more appealing to shoppers. By the late 1990s Evergreen Park was making news by hiring a crew of predominantly African-American Santas for the holiday season.
The last year of its heyday was 2000, when the mall generated $1 million in sales tax revenues for the village.
Then in 2001 it suffered a serious blow when Montgomery Ward shuttered all its stores, including a four-level, 225,000-square-foot anchor space at the mall.
National Wholesale Liquidators fills the bottom two floors of Ward's site but the discounter's lease at the mall ends in April. Other efforts have been made to upgrade the exterior, such as listing the names of some of the 120 tenants on the exterior walls and revamping the parking areas. Management employs 30 uniformed guards, spending 12 percent of revenues on security.
"I think it got a reputation when its customer base was changing a little bit in the 1980s," Provo said. "Sometimes you get criticized for being too local. But the national tenants can't keep pace with our fashion-forward customers. The type of things that people want to criticize us for are also our strengths."
Nevertheless, the owners have decided that the mall's heavily trafficked location at 95th and Western would make it a prime property for redevelopment by a company with deep pockets and connections to national tenants. In the past few months the mall has quietly been marketed, with a price tag upward of $70 million.
"It's the type of center that we're going to see increasing problems with -- the malls that don't have the upscale mix," said retail expert John Melaniphy, who remembers shopping at the center as a child. "The more average mass-merchandise type of mall is going to be in trouble because the discounters are stealing [customers] away. The most logical solution is to tear it down and build a big-box development, a power center. That's what the consumer wants today."
Provo agrees: "You have to realize that things can't stand still."
- - -
Evergreen Plaza mall
Built: In 1952 as a series of several stores anchored by two grocers. Later enclosed to become Chicago's first indoor mall.
Stores: 120
Square feet: 1.2 million
Visitors: 7 million (in 2006)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri_evergreenjan11,1,3319596.story
Evergreen Plaza mall may be sold, bringing change in stores and customer demographics
Retail center has lost sheen over the years as chain stores left and demographics changed
By Mary Ellen Podmolik | Special to the Tribune
January 11, 2008
A customer of Evergreen Plaza for almost 40 years and a store owner there for the past 15 months, Ann Baker likes to think of the shopping center as her mall.
She has shopped at Evergreen Plaza through the changes, as regional and national chain stores closed, some to be replaced by local businesses, as the mall's customer base shifted to being significantly African-American, and as the mall's owners took steps to spruce up the aging property.
In the fall of 2006 she decided to take advantage of those trends and relocated her African-American children's hair salon from 104th Street and Western Avenue into the mall, to the same space where she used to buy Buster Brown shoes for her children.
And she doesn't regret the move, since sales at Ann's Tots 'N Teens Hair Salon have been "wonderful."
But the next step of likely changes to the mall, now dubbed The Plaza, are ones that give Baker pause.
Owners of the mall, one of the area's few large-scale shopping centers catering to the African-American market, are looking for new financial partners or an outright sale of the property, with the goal of redeveloping much of the 30-acre site into an open-air center filled with national tenants.
"If they change things, I'd like my little corner to stay," Baker said. "It's been a pleasure to see black-owned businesses, and the businesses are up to par. I thought it was nice that it wasn't all white-owned businesses, that since it was us spending the money, we were spending it with each other."
A redevelopment would bring in very different kinds of stores with the goal of attracting a much wider, more affluent audience. The result could mean significant demographic change, with many of the area's white consumers shopping alongside African-Americans.
"You'd hate to lose that [local] flavor, but a developer that wants to tap into the demographics and the money surrounding the mall, they have to create more of those national stores that can completely broaden the base of the demographic," said Bruce Provo, president of Provo Group Inc., a Kansas City firm that has an equity interest in and manages the mall. "I think in five years it would be a very diversified mix [of customers.]"
Opened in 1952 by Chicago real estate developer Arthur Rubloff and still owned by the original group of partners, Evergreen Plaza Shopping Center was billed as the first major regional shopping center in the country. It expanded over the years, was enclosed in the 1960s and thrived in its densely populated location, attracting suburbanites as well as Chicago residents who liked the idea of so many stores under one roof.
"It's got a great history, but history doesn't always pay the bills," said Evergreen Park Mayor James J. Sexton, who favors a redevelopment but would like to see Carson's, which generates $30 million in annual sales, remain. "I equate it to homes that are 50 years old. There's only so much you can do."
Demographic shifts on Chicago's South Side and the development of other malls, notably Chicago Ridge Mall and Orland Square, began to change the composition of the mall. Management began to focus on stores that would cater to urban customers rather than residents of predominantly white Evergreen Park. The theaters were closed and razed to lessen the number of teens at the center and make the mall more appealing to shoppers. By the late 1990s Evergreen Park was making news by hiring a crew of predominantly African-American Santas for the holiday season.
The last year of its heyday was 2000, when the mall generated $1 million in sales tax revenues for the village.
Then in 2001 it suffered a serious blow when Montgomery Ward shuttered all its stores, including a four-level, 225,000-square-foot anchor space at the mall.
National Wholesale Liquidators fills the bottom two floors of Ward's site but the discounter's lease at the mall ends in April. Other efforts have been made to upgrade the exterior, such as listing the names of some of the 120 tenants on the exterior walls and revamping the parking areas. Management employs 30 uniformed guards, spending 12 percent of revenues on security.
"I think it got a reputation when its customer base was changing a little bit in the 1980s," Provo said. "Sometimes you get criticized for being too local. But the national tenants can't keep pace with our fashion-forward customers. The type of things that people want to criticize us for are also our strengths."
Nevertheless, the owners have decided that the mall's heavily trafficked location at 95th and Western would make it a prime property for redevelopment by a company with deep pockets and connections to national tenants. In the past few months the mall has quietly been marketed, with a price tag upward of $70 million.
"It's the type of center that we're going to see increasing problems with -- the malls that don't have the upscale mix," said retail expert John Melaniphy, who remembers shopping at the center as a child. "The more average mass-merchandise type of mall is going to be in trouble because the discounters are stealing [customers] away. The most logical solution is to tear it down and build a big-box development, a power center. That's what the consumer wants today."
Provo agrees: "You have to realize that things can't stand still."
- - -
Evergreen Plaza mall
Built: In 1952 as a series of several stores anchored by two grocers. Later enclosed to become Chicago's first indoor mall.
Stores: 120
Square feet: 1.2 million
Visitors: 7 million (in 2006)