Chicago’s historic Ford City Mall, a shopping destination for generations of local residents ever since its 1965 opening in a renovated airplane factory, appears headed toward closure.
City officials reached an agreement this week with property owner Namdar Realty Group to shut down the main mall after two years of fruitless attempts to repair a malfunctioning fire suppression system and stop frequent flooding, Assistant Corporation Counsel Greg Janes said Thursday at a hearing in Cook County court.
But shoppers and retail tenants at the massive indoor shopping mall on the Southwest Side got a seven-day reprieve after Judge Leonard Murray did not grant a request from city officials to quickly shutter the mostly vacant indoor shopping center due to safety concerns.
Representatives for the massive property’s 16 remaining stores told the judge that the city’s emergency request, first put forward at an April 13 court hearing, left them blindsided.
“We just renewed the lease of a profitable store and it’s been operating since 1965,” said Allen Woolley, an attorney for JCPenney, the mall’s last large department store. “We would like to suggest this isn’t an emergency. An immediate vacating of this store is neither called for or necessary.”
Woolley asked the judge to delay action for 30 to 60 days and give JCPenney time to either plan an orderly shutdown or help fix any safety concerns.
“There’s not even an opportunity to have a going-out-of-business sale,” he said.
But the reprieve is likely to be short-lived. Murray said concerns about the safety of the mall’s tenants and customers had to prevail. He scheduled another hearing for April 23, and told all the parties they needed to reach an agreement.
“”I can’t go 30 days given what I’m hearing,” he said. “This is an urgent situation.”
Ford City Mall was once a popular and vibrant shopping destination, but the rise of online retail left it on life support. Ford City had more than 100 stores during its heyday, but most tenants abandoned it, leaving long stretches of its interior entirely vacant. New York-based Namdar, an investor known for buying up distressed retail, bought it for about $16 million in 2019, but maintenance issues such as leaky ceilings continued to fester.
Janes told Murray the conditions inside the mall at 7601 S. Cicero Ave. are an emergency. The city cited the property owner for a broken fire suppression system in May 2024, and all efforts to resolve the issue were unsuccessful. The mall failed a fire pump test last week, and with so many vacant stores, city officials worry a fire could start unnoticed and get out of control.
City inspectors identified many issues, including “huge water leaks, burst sprinkler heads, and blown booster pumps,” and “open wiring, dirty conditions, and poor lighting,” according to an April 10 court filing.
“It wasn’t safe last year and it’s not safe now,” Janes said. “The city has to act. We’ve tried to be patient.”
Namdar Realty Group did not return a message seeking comment. Janes said a representative from the company joined Thursday’s online court hearing, but they did not speak up during the one-hour proceeding.
The city’s shutdown request only targets the main indoor mall, Janes said. The property’s North Mall, an outdoor strip center on its north side, along with outlying stores and restaurants such as IHOP, could stay open.
Chicago Fire Department Lt. Robert Steffens told Murray there are other dangers. The original structure was built in the 1940s to manufacture B-29 bombers, and the water pipes date to the 1960s-era reconstruction into Ford City Mall, he said. That antiquated system has leaked out several million gallons of water over the past several years, and if the liquid settled into the soil underneath the mall, it could threaten the mall’s structural integrity.
“We’re hoping and praying it found its way into the sewer system, but we’re not sure,” he said. “We could have a portion of the mall collapse into a great sinkhole.”
Janes said the owner plans to sell the main indoor mall, and is unlikely to pay the sky-high costs needed to update its systems.
Ald. Derrick Curtis, 18th, whose ward includes Ford City Mall, held a community meeting last summer to discuss a plan by Kurv Industrial, a national developer of distribution and logistics buildings, to buy the property, demolish the main mall and replace it with a collection of warehouses.
The plan would need approvals from the Chicago Plan Commission and the full City Council. A Kurv spokesperson said they were aware of the legal battles over Ford City Mall, but had no updates about the project.
Other Ford City tenants outside the main mall told the judge they were worried a shutdown could affect or even cut off their water supplies, given that the North Mall and other small parcels all use the same system.
“This is the first we’ve heard of it,” said Albert Barr, facilities director for Planet Fitness, part of the North Mall. “We have a lease that goes out to 2032. This is quite a surprise for us.”
Murray encouraged city officials, all the stores and Namdar Realty Group to hash out these problems before the April 23 hearing, adding he was surprised the property owner hadn’t done more outreach to its tenants.
“It seems to me the conditions should have been discussed leading up to the decisions to extend these leases,” he said. “I’m a little troubled by it.”
The proposed warehouse project for the site is not a done deal, according to Mayor Brandon Johnson.
A caller to WBEZ’s monthly Ask the Mayor series on Thursday said the Southwest Side already had too many warehouses, and asked Johnson whether he would support alternative uses for the Ford City site, including affordable housing.
“I would be open to a community discussion of what that property could look like,” Johnson said.
