River Oaks Center

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River Oaks Center

Location	Calumet City, Illinois, United States
Opening date	October 1966
Developer	Philip M. Klutznick
Management	Simon Property Group
Owner	Simon Property Group
No. of stores and services	140
No. of anchor tenants	4
Total retail floor area	1.3 million ft²
No. of floors	1 plus partial lower level
Website	http://www.shopriveroakscenter.com

River Oaks Center is located at the southeast corner of River Oaks Drive and Torrence Avenue in Calumet City, Illinois. River Oaks Center originally opened in 1966 and was a development of KLC Ventures, a firm that included pioneering developer Philip M. Klutznick and his son Tom. The elder Klutznick had developed Park Forest, Illinois after World War II, as well as Oakbrook Center in Oak Brook in 1959 and Old Orchard Shopping Center in Skokie in 1956. River Oaks Center is the largest enclosed shopping mall in the south suburbs of Chicago, and the seventh largest in the metropolitan area totaling 1,379,824 square feet (128,190 m²).

Contents 1 History 2 Expansion 3 Surrounding area 3.1 River Oaks West 3.2 The Landings 4 References

[edit] History

River Oaks originally opened as an outdoor mall with one minor and two major department stores. The original anchors were Marshall Field's, which built a 275,000-square-foot (25,500 m²) store, Sears, and a branch of Edward C. Minas Company, which was based in nearby Hammond, Indiana. Other major stores included a Jewel supermarket at the south end, and a S. S. Kresge dime store next to Sears. Kresge closed in 1987 and became a movie theater, while the closure of Jewel made way for a McDonald's restaurant and a second theater complex. Many of the stores in the mall in its first 20 years were outposts of Chicago retailers, including Chas A Stevens, Kroch's and Brentano's, and C.D. Peacock. Carson Pirie Scott eventually took over the Edward C. Minas store.

In 1985, the mall was expanded when J. C. Penney moved its store from downtown Hammond, Indiana to the northwest portion of the mall's parking lot. A new wing was also built to connect JCPenney to the mall, and a food court was added on the enclosed lower level.^[1]

[edit] Expansion

In the late 1980s and early 1990s then owner JMB Corp. of Chicago had several plans to expand and enclose the outdoor mall. These plans included adding a second level and possibly a fifth department store at the end of the southeastern wing of the mall. These plans coincided with Chicago's Lake Calumet Airport which would have been just a few miles north of the mall and would have transformed the area around the mall into an office and business hub. However, these plans never materialized and finally in 1993 JMB began a smaller version of the redevelopment which included additional retail space and enclosing the common areas mall. The reconfiguration also modernized the layout of the mall putting stores closer together.

In 1994 the redevelopment was completed. The mall was enclosed and 80,000 square feet (7,000 m²) of gross leasable area was added. New retailers opened at the mall and the tenant mix became more upscale bringing in some retailers who had not yet located in the Southern Suburbs. The mall's size was brought up to 1,380,000 square feet (128,000 m²) making it the largest mall in the South Suburbs. A new food court was added on the main mall level, with the former food court being vacated.

The mall was sold in 1997 to Simon Property Group of Indianapolis, which has managed it ever since and a large office building with Westwood College as its major tenant in both the office building and in the former Tower Cafe space. Steve & Barry's opened in the JCPenney wing replacing what had originally been Evans and later Maple Mysel's/Weiss Furs, but closed in 2008.

[edit] Surrounding area

[edit] River Oaks West

On the western side of Torrence Avenue is River Oaks West. This was a smaller cousin of River Oaks Center built in the early 1970s also as an outdoor mall. Originally there were no anchor stores here, just a collection of smaller shops, many facing an interior courtyard, while others faced Torrence. There was also a movie theatre in the back of the mall and another on an outlot. TJ Maxx was the largest store here until 1986 when a MainStreet (later Kohl's) built a store on the southern end of the mall, taking out a row of smaller shops and restaurants.

Just to the north, but in the same parking lot was a Venture and an A&P supermarket which later became Marshalls. Venture eventually went out of business as well in 1998 and became a Big Kmart and operated until 2002. Several stores such as Bed Bath & Beyond, Old Navy and Michaels have all filled in the former Venture/Kmart space.

Today River Oaks West has evolved into a more traditional "power center" featuring mostly big box stores facing Torrence. As of December 2007 the movie theatre has been demolished, leaving only the smaller retailers. In early 2008 the former Kohl's Department store was demolished in order to make way for Sam's Club.

[edit] The Landings

On the south side of the Little Calumet River is another large shopping center called The Landings. The Landings is just across the border from Calumet City in the village of Lansing. Built on a former driving range and mini-golf course, The Landings opened in 1987. This mall was at one time planned as an enclosed mall with a similar design as Orland Park Place in Orland Park, Illinois. However, it was built as a "power center" with several large "big box" stores with smaller shops and restaurants. The original anchors of this center were Zayre, Highland Appliances, Service Merchandise, Cub Foods, Toys "R" Us/Kids "R" Us, Handy Andy, and Designer Depot.

[edit] References

1. http://nwitimes.com/articles/2007/07/29/news/illiana/doc24de7630f1b7095b862573260080a2e3.txt 2. http://nwitimes.com/articles/1994/03/06/export176632.txt

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