As the home of the Chicago area’s first regional shopping mall, Evergreen Park holds a secure place in local history.
Evergreen Plaza has been a dominant force in local retailing since it opened in 1952 on the southwest corner of 95th Street and Western Avenue on the Chicago-Evergreen Park border.
“It does a very large sales volume, probably in the top 20 percent of regional malls,” said Bruce Provo, whose Kansas City-based management firm, The Provo Group, operates the mall.
The mall occupies about one million square feet of shopping space, anchored by three large chain stores: Carson Pirie Scott, Montgomery Ward and Circuit City.
The mall’s business mix is growing, Provo said. There are 15 new stores, including a third store owned by Paul Barnett, whose family business was among the original tenants, a jewelry store and a gyro shop. “We will have substantially no vacancies at the holidays,” Provo said.
“It’s been a very good place to do business,” said Barnett, owner of Barnett’s Handbags and Barnett’s Fashion Accessories. His third store, 11,000 square feet devoted to furs and designer suits and dresses, is scheduled to open Nov. 10.
The business has been part of the mall from the beginning. “My father [Louis] started here 48 years ago,” Barnett said.
Barnett’s stores have evolved with customer preferences, first specializing in top-of-the-line designer purses that generated “tremendous interest,” then expanding into leather coats and colorful designer sweaters.
Danielle DeHaan, the mall’s retail-tenant service coordinator, agreed that designer labels bring in the shoppers.
“Our customer is a very name-brand customer. They look for it, they’ll pay for it,” DeHaan said.
Another key is providing a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere, she said.
To that end, new seating has been arranged in small, conversational groupings and potted plants have been scattered around the central area to “make it comfortable,” DeHaan said.
A grand piano in the central area is used for entertainment on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
The added space for seating and greenery was achieved by removing the small booths of specialized merchandise that dot the central areas of many malls, Provo said. The open mall space draws more attention to the stores, he said.
“We want to create more of a community and family feeling,” Provo said. “We want to be the shopping center that is really the place to shop for kids’ clothes.”
“Our children’s stores are very prominent,” DeHaan said. “Bruce [Provo] feels it is very important to have a family focus.”
The focus extends beyond selling children’s clothes.
“We have the only children’s museum in a mall throughout the country,” Provo said.
The Bronzeville Children’s Museum is a hands-on operation, teaching lessons in history and science. The current exhibit is “Amazing Dinosaurs/Africans: First Humans.”
“The mall is the perfect place to have this museum,” said Peggy Montes, the museum’s founder.
The location is accessible, parking is free and the museum is visible daily to a large number of children and adults. It is an attraction in its own right, she said, drawing visitors from distant suburbs and neighboring states.
“Though the focus [of the exhibits] is African-American, we still have people who come great distances to see the museum,” she said. “We have a diverse audience.”
Shopping patterns have changed over the years, Provo said.
“We’ve become very sensitive to guest services,” he said. “We have to have maximum comfort. We want them to relax being there.”
Among the customer services is a health center operated by Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers that offers health screenings and educational programs, a bank branch and a barber shop.
The guest services center sells bus passes, gift certificates and tickets to events. Guest services workers also send faxes and copy documents.
Plans are under way to set up a personal shopping service, DeHaan said.
“People don’t believe we offer as many services as we do out of this little booth,” said Zerreka Lloyd, a guest services employee.
Barnett credited personalized service for the success of his shops.
“I think a lot of malls lost sight of the fact that a trip to the mall can be an experience–a combination of dining, shopping, people watching,” he said. “The Internet will never replace human contact.
“Even though we’re in a major shopping center, we tend to be a mom-and-pop store,” Barnett said, adding that his longtime employees, many with 15 to 20 years with his stores, know their customers by name, and also know their preferences.
Some of the customer demographics have changed, Barnett said. “We used to be a suburban mall,” he said. “Then the mall attracted prosperous African-American shoppers from Chicago. We still get plenty of customers from Evergreen Park.” Evergreen Plaza is a major contributor to the local economy, Provo said.
“We’re a good neighbor, a good taxpayer, a good employer,” he said. “We have 2,000 employees–that’s a huge impact on the economy around us.”
For the Village of Evergreen Park, the mall is more than a landmark, Village Clerk Jim Sexton said.
The mall is not only one of the village’s major employers, it also generates a great deal of income, he said.
The state remits sales tax in a lump sum and doesn’t break it down business by business. However, the size and scope of the mall business indicates it brings in the largest share, Sexton said.
“The Plaza, in particular, is the largest sales-tax generator. We know that for sure,” he said.
The mall is “very important–they’re the backbone.”
