Calling Lincoln Mall a “public danger,” Matteson village officials are moving to shut down the 40-year-old south suburban shopping center after years of trying to persuade owners to repair its crumbling roof, exposed electrical wiring and dismantled fire sprinkler system.
Village officials said they asked a Cook County judge Wednesday to close the mall until owner Michael Kohan fixes more than two dozen safety violations. Kohan bought the mall last year for $150,000 with the understanding that he’d take responsibility for $9 million in accumulated fines and unpaid taxes, according to court documents.
“This is a disaster waiting to happen,” Village Administrator Brian Mitchell said. “The people working and shopping in the mall are in harm’s way.”
The mall on U.S. Highway 30 has struggled under previous owners, the lawsuit and tenants said. With 45 tenants and roughly 100 employees, the mall remains about 50 percent vacant, according to the lawsuit.
One of Lincoln’s tenants, bookstore owner Kevin Roberts, said a prolonged closing would kill his 6-year-old business, Azizi Books.
“This will probably put us out of business,” Roberts said. “I don’t have a business I can just pick up and move. I’m an independent bookstore, the last of a dying breed.”
At a nearby news conference, village officials showed photographs of pipes from the fire suppression system with footwide gaps in them, a crumbling foundation wall, and an external wall they said sways because supports have been exposed to the elements.
Kohan bought the mall at auction after the previous owner defaulted on its mortgage obligations, according to the lawsuit. Kohan did not return requests for comment. Village officials said a judge will hear their lawsuit Thursday in Markam.
Village officials had worked on redevelopment plans with the previous owner and had informed Kohan of the code violations, village attorney Anthony Licata wrote in an email to the Tribune.
Two weeks ago, the village offered to postpone its lawsuit if Kohan would post $100,000 to guarantee the start of repairs, Licata wrote. After learning the suit had been filed, Kohan on Wednesday offered to post a surety bond, not cash, but the village declined, Licata wrote.
Earlier this year, Kohan hired an architecture firm to develop a rehabilitation plan and submitted a plan assessing the costs to fix the fire and building code violations, the lawsuit said. But village officials rejected that plan.
Village officials said that as recently as Tuesday morning Kohan had not submitted complete plans for renovations as promised or posted a bond with the city that would pay for engineering studies.
Kohan, who the court documents indicate also goes by the name Mehran Kohansieh, is a real estate investor who owns properties across the country, the lawsuit said. They include a 794,000-square foot mall near Toledo, Ohio.
Quoting a newspaper article, the lawsuit said Kohan spent $700,000 on the Ohio mall but that “fewer than 30 of the mall” 100 spaces were operational.”
Kohan bought Jamestown Mall in Florissant, Mo., in June 2009 and owns Village Square Mall in Effingham, Ill., the lawsuit said. Both properties also are in decline, the suit said.
Despite the problems, it is rare for a municipality to attempt to shut down a mall, according to Neil Stern, senior partner at McMillanDoolittle, a Chicago-based retail consultancy.
“Typically, mall owners are motivated to get the most out of their centers. In (the instance of Lincoln Mall) it has decayed to the point of hurting the … area,” Stern said.
While Lincoln Mall is home to a Carson’s and mall staples such as GNC, Foot Locker and Bath & Body Works, most of the mall is occupied by locally owned businesses, said Bill Shugan, owner of SomeWear, a men’s clothing shop.
“It’s a power struggle, and we’re caught in the middle,” he said. “The Fire Department and the village is saying this building is uninhabitable. If that’s true, it’s been true for five years.”
“We all know the exterior of the building looks like a war zone, and we all want that fixed,” Shugan said. “We all have investments here. We have employees. If we close, even for a short time, half the businesses here won’t come back. Does the village really want a vacant mall?”
Malls have struggled in recent years with increasing numbers of consumers shopping online and mounting competition from big-box discounters such as Target, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart, which often set up along traffic arteries that lead to the entrance of malls.
While Lincoln Mall and others in the Chicago area such as Evergreen Plaza and Ford City Mall have struggled, more upscale malls that offer high-end shopping — such as Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg and Westfield Fox Valley Mall in Aurora — have flourished, industry watchers say.
They also noted that Lincoln Mall’s age is not the source of its problems. Another older mall, Westfield Old Orchard Mall, located in the north suburbs off Interstate 94, is thriving and hosts big-name, high-end retailers like Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom.
Despite tough competition, malls generally are holding their own. Foot traffic in malls is improving, up 1.7 percent year to date compared with the same period last year, said Bill Martin, founder of Chicago-based retail tracking firm ShopperTrak.
Many malls with stores and businesses catering to a lower price point have sputtered because the income and population in the areas surrounding them have declined, according to retail experts.
But the area around Lincoln Mall is flush with middle- and upper-middle-income African-Americans who opt to spend their money at Oakbrook Center in Oak Brook and on Michigan Avenue rather than frequent Lincoln Mall, according to retail consultant John Melaniphy.
“They want more upscale stores, and Lincoln Mall wasn’t successful at getting upscale stores to locate there,” Melaniphy said.
In addition to its structural woes, Lincoln Mall has seen some of its biggest tenants leave in recent years. Beleaguered retailer J.C. Penney left the mall years ago and built a stand-alone location just off the mall’s 60-acre property. Sears shuttered last year.
What’s left are a number of other lower-priced and independent retailers that can’t draw the foot traffic that well-known, higher-priced retailers do, retail insiders said.
And once the big-name stores start to trickle out, it’s tough for a mall that has hit hard times to make a comeback, Melaniphy said, who compared the situation to a snowball: “Once (the mall) starts to drop sales significantly, it just keeps rolling,” he said. “Eventually it ends up like a derelict and either gets torn down or it’s changed for another use.”
Katrina Stokes, 31, frequents Lincoln Mall, which is the closest major shopping center to her home in Park Forest. She worked at an Old Navy store that moved two years from Lincoln Mall to a location in Tinley Park.
“People were always wondering if it was going to close when I worked here, but it seemed like it was getting better,” Stokes said Wednesday. “They were working on things here, and then the work just stopped. This mall used to be the mall when I was in high school. It’s sad.”
Shareese Tovar, who has run a small shoe design and repair business near the mall entrance for about four years, said she and many of her fellow business owners plan to attend the court hearing in Markham.
“We just want our voice to be heard,” she said. “If they shut us down, it will kill us.”
Tribune reporter Mugambi Mutegi contributed.
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