WEST LAWN — As a proposed plan to remodel Ford Metropolis Mall into an industrial campus awaits zoning approval, Ald. Derrick Curtis (18th) warned neighbors that if builders determine to not pursue the mission, the group could possibly be in “huge hassle.”
Dozens of neighbors crowded into Daley School Wednesday to debate the destiny of the struggling Southwest Aspect shopping center in a three-hour group assembly.
Bridge Industrial, a Chicago-based actual property firm that redevelops environmentally impacted and underutilized buildings in city areas, offered its plans on the assembly to purchase the mall, demolish the positioning and construct a multi-building industrial campus at 7400-7600 S. Kostner Ave. and 7601 S. Cicero Ave.
The campus will embrace 4, 40-feet-tall warehouses starting from 110,000 sq. toes to 300,000 sq. toes and home small and medium-sized companies, mentioned Curt Pascoe, Bridge Industrial’s vice chairman of growth.
The corporate will assemble the campus on a “speculative foundation” with out figuring out which tenants will occupy the areas till it’s near completion, Pascoe mentioned.
The buildings are “constructed to be versatile” and “service the wants of large teams of tenants for a very long time,” Pascoe mentioned. Companies which have arrange store in different warehouses developed by Bridge Industrial manufacture meals, assemble electronics and equipment or host giant refrigeration techniques for prescription drugs.
Assembly with the group was the “first step of a protracted course of,” Pascoe mentioned. Bridge Industrial submitted a visitors and air high quality examine to metropolis officers however “nonetheless have quite a lot of engineering and analysis to do,” he mentioned.
To maneuver ahead with the proposed mission, the builders want approval from Metropolis Council to rezone the property.
If all goes as deliberate, Bridge Industrial expects to shut on the property by later 2026 and open the campus for enterprise by 2028, Pascoe mentioned. The event is estimated to generate $2 million in property taxes per 12 months, Pascoe mentioned.
Curtis, whose ward consists of Ford Metropolis Mall, referred to as the event a “good mission” that may fulfill the group’s want for financial growth and supply as much as 1,000 jobs.
Namdar Realty Group, a non-public actual property agency based mostly in New York, bought Ford Metropolis Mall in 2019 and have turn into “slumlords,” Curtis mentioned.
At this time, the mall is about 54 % vacant, with solely 15 shops remaining. Ford Metropolis’s final anchor tenant, JC Penny, has a lease that ends February 2026, Curtis mentioned.
Regardless of its years-long decline, Curtis hasn’t contacted every other corporations to repurpose Ford Metropolis Mall as a result of it’s such a big growth, he mentioned. Bridge Industrial is the one firm that has approached him to buy and redevelop it, Curtis mentioned.
If the group doesn’t assist Bridge Industrial’s proposed growth, “I don’t know the subsequent time somebody will need to are available and make investments something close to $200 million on this mission,” Curtis mentioned.
“If Bridge pulls out, not solely will the group, however the metropolis of Chicago can be in huge hassle,” Curtis mentioned. “We is likely to be caught. I’d be actually afraid.”
Almost 900 folks have signed a petition launched by Scottsdale resident Mayela Calixto to cease the redevelopment of Ford Metropolis Mall into an industrial park.
However at Wednesday’s assembly, most neighbors agreed that Ford Metropolis Mall does want to shut. Builders need to work with the group to convey companies that assist their wants and hold folks secure, they mentioned.
Neighbors raised considerations of noise air pollution, visitors and issues of safety on the proposed industrial campus. Traversing Cicero Avenue through the day is a matter that might solely worsen with vans getting into and exiting the park, neighbors mentioned.
“We’re speaking a few neighborhood that’s inside a half a block of your entrance door, and I don’t need to hear vans, and I don’t need to odor your vans both,” one neighbor mentioned.
Neighbors additionally expressed fears of air pollution from demolition of the mall releasing into close by communities.
Throughout World Struggle II, the positioning was a manufacturing unit for Boeing airplane engines, Pascoe mentioned. After the conflict ended, it was an car manufacturing unit. Ford Metropolis Mall opened on the property in 1965.
The location is a brownfield that may require environmental cleanup, Pascoe mentioned. Any findings of poisonous supplies can be reported to Curtis to share with the group, he mentioned.
Some neighbors questioned whether or not Curtis tried to hunt out different builders who might reimagine the positioning in a extra “visionary” means as with Goose Island’s Salt Shed and The 78 in South Loop.
Ward Miller, government director at Preservation Chicago, really helpful that builders repurpose the constructing reasonably than demolish it due to its storied historical past in the neighborhood, drawing a spherical of applause from neighbors on the assembly.
“The greenest buildings are those we now have,” Miller mentioned. “Now we have the chance to unpeel all of the remodelings that went on on this complicated over time and actually create one thing particular, the place folks can be attracted.
“I believe there could possibly be quite a lot of companies, quite a lot of inventive facets to it. The tougher the issue, the higher the answer.”
However companies don’t come to communities simply because folks need them, particularly in “border wards” like his, Curtis mentioned.
“I’d like to see folks breaking their necks, attempting to get this property, however that’s not the case,” Curtis mentioned.
Curtis mentioned he’ll proceed to satisfy with the group to gauge their suggestions on the mission.
“Now we have assist from neighboring [municipalities] as a result of they know the way necessary it’s for this city,” Curtis mentioned. “We are able to’t hold the mall the best way it’s.”
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