Boarded-up storefronts line Park Forest’s once-celebrated downtown mall. Faded awnings droop. Untended weeds strangle one another. Pigeon skeletons dot the floors of abandoned buildings.
And village manager Janet Muchnik could not be happier.
“It’s a great, great day,” Muchnik said recently. “I’m having strangers stop me at the grocery store and say, `We’re so thrilled you’ve had the courage to undertake this incredible challenge.’ “
The incredible challenge is the Park Forest Village Board’s unusual decision to grab control of its deteriorated downtown by purchasing, renovating and running the mall.
Park Forest officials, who call their deal a renaissance for the town, plan to bring new shops into their mall, demolish about one-third of the buildings and build residential real estate on some of the parking lot land.
It is a new twist on the old problem of run-down downtowns in the suburbs, where strip malls on the interstate and swank centers in fancier suburbs seduce fairweather shoppers.
Suburban officials hope that by revitalizing their town’s center, they will revitalize the whole town economically and psychologically.
Though it remains an unusual solution, at least two other Chicago suburbs are giving the landlord business a try.
Des Plaines aldermen this week approved a plan to purchase a mall in their stagnant downtown area for $2.7 million through condemnation proceedings; officials there intend to renovate it with the help of a high-quality developer. Officials there envision multifamily residences, a medical facility, cultural facilities, upscale restaurants and shops.
And, in a slight variation, Schaumburg officials started the demolition in late September of the ghost-town remains of the long-defunct Town Square shopping center, which the village purchased for $7.5 million to raze it and create a traditional downtown for the first time in that suburb. They see the center anchored by a a giant grocery, dotted with shops and surrounded by a 200-seat, in-ground outdoor amphitheater, a skating pond, library and waterfall.
The leaders of municipal organizations say towns are turning more to direct property purchases after other programs–such as offering creative financing to developers and closing off streets to create pedestrian malls–have failed.
“They’re saying, `The only way to do it is to do it ourselves,’ ” said Roger Huebner, director of legislative programs for the Illinois Municipal League.
Indeed, after decades of watching their downtowns neglected or treated like some interchangeable asset by developers and private owners, municipal officials say it is time for those who have emotional–not just financial–investments in the community to remake the town’s center.
“In the past 20 years, there have been seven or eight different owners,” said F. Patrick Kelly, Park Forest’s village president. “For them, it’s just been an asset to be manipulated. For us, it’s the heart of our town.”
The importance of a town center is not new, said Carl Stover, a professor of public administration at Governors State University and a 20-year resident of Park Forest.
“It’s the heart of the community, going back to the Agora in Athens, where Socrates taught and the Sophists debated. It was the marketplace and the meeting place and it still is,” said Stover, who worked with Park Forest on the deal.
None of the suburbs wants to be in the landlord business too long. The Des Plaines City Council, for example, approved a contract with an Evanston group to manage its mall until its planned demolition in 1998. Officials in Park Forest and Schaumburg would like individual shop owners to buy into their centers.
But each of those communities is convinced that a revitalized downtown will jump-start its town’s economy and self-image.
“Pride spreads,” said Des Plaines Mayor Ted Sherwood. “Pride is contagious. I believe if we accomplish what we visualize, five years from now the 55,000 residents of Des Plaines will be truly proud of their downtown area, and that pride will be reflected in the rest of the community in terms of upkeep.”
Des Plaines city manager Wally Douthwaite agreed, saying, “It does a lot just for the ambience and soul of the community.”
The suburban mayors and managers talk more easily of dreams and visions than they do of the brass tacks of economic redevelopment.
“We have to be prepared to do some dumb things,” Sherwood said. “I’m not an authority on this. But, and I don’t want to become too corny, the whole building around here is tingling with excitement.”
“We’ve never done this before,” said Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson, “but if we were going to realize this dream that we have, we had to be in control. A town center must be more than a place for people to shop. It’s the center of town, the place where people gather. It’s important for our identity, and we think our concept is really going to make a statement.”
Park Forest village manager Muchnik said she “would have loved role models to look to,” during the process but found none.
The passion for these downtowns is partly attributable to the past and to high hopes.
Park Forest’s Centre is one of the granddaddies of suburban Chicago shopping malls. The open-air center was built in 1949 and was hailed as an innovative aspect of the postwar planned community. It was one of the first to grow into a regional presence. But since the 1970s, it has struggled mightily to compete with the plethora of glitzy malls that have sprung up seemingly on every interstate from Indiana to Wisconsin.
The 26-acre Schaumburg site is in the heart of the village’s historic district, Larson said. In the early years, it was the hub of activity, the home of two general stores, four cheese factories and a cobbler. Back then, the Easy Street Pub was a family-owned eatery where, local lore has it, Al Capone went for a meal.
The 20-year-old 114,000-square-foot Des Plaines Mall, which the village will take possession of Thursday, and surrounding properties do not have the same historical context, but it is centrally situated.
Modern shopkeepers in those deteriorating centers have hung in while owners came and went, and they said they are cautiously hopeful.
“It’s a shock, and we’re just at the very beginning,” said Joyce Liberty, who owns Liberty Travel in the Des Plaines Mall. ” I believe what the city did was necessary and I hope it works out. They had to do something.”
John Ostenburg is a former state representative and longtime Park Forest resident. He runs Changes Bookstore, Tea and Coffee Room, with his wife, Jackie Ostenburg, in the Park Forest mall, and he said that the village has not been a bad landlord.
“The day after the village bought the mall,” he said, “they came out and changed every burned-out lightbulb in the parking lot. Plus, they plowed the snow. From the start, there have been signs of change.”
