Apartment developer launches Yorktown mall project; first phase calls for 271 units

Going into the busy holiday shopping season, visitors to Yorktown Center are seeing visible progress on a project to revitalize the Lombard mall.

New restaurants and a Dave & Buster’s have been added to the mix. A grocery store is slated to open next year. In the clearest sign of the mall’s resurgence, a developer has kicked off the first phase of a luxury apartment project called “Yorktown Reserve.”

The old Carson’s department store will be dismantled to pave the way for public green space between the mall and the apartments. Inward-facing mall spaces will be turned outward. Facing the park will be a new, two-story entrance directly into the center of the mall.

“The former department store boxes were just simply too big. There’s no windows, a ton of square feet. Let’s get rid of the box,” said Phil Domenico, one of the owners of Synergy Construction & Development, the company putting apartments next to the mall.

The suburban mall landscape as the mall generation once knew it is in the midst of a transformation. The mall directory is no longer dominated by stores such as Sears and Carson’s. Other mall operators have welcomed housing developments on-site because they create a built-in audience.

It’s “all about new customers,” Domenico said.

“Some of them are increasingly more vacant,” he said. “And how do you save what’s there? How do you make sure that the mall doesn’t completely go away? Well, let’s bring higher-density multifamily to that location.”

The development

Synergy will add the apartments in phases – building 271 units to start – on the former Carson’s parking lot. Synergy secured about $92 million in financing for the first phase through CIBC Bank, Republic Bank and Fidelity Investments.

Pacific Retail Capital Partners, the owner of the core mall property, was instrumental in negotiating with the other big boxes there to permit the development, Domenico said.

“What we’re doing is we’re taking Yorktown mall and turning it from exclusively a retail center … into a true mixed use,” he said.

What was a sea of parking outside the vacant Carson’s is blocked off with fencing. The demolition of the anchor store will make room for “The Square,” a plaza-like area linking the new development with the shopping center. A dramatic new entry will be flanked by retail spaces with “a lot of glass storefront facing into the park,” Domenico said.

“We are pleased to have broken ground at Yorktown, which will ultimately result in multiple multifamily buildings and The Square and are deeply appreciative of the support the village has provided us throughout this process,” said Jonathan Rood, Pacific Retail’s executive vice president of development, in a written statement.

“Our expertise lies in reimagining our properties as essential, vibrant hubs that serve their communities for decades to come and redevelopment is core to this vision.”

The village last year approved an initial performance-based economic incentive agreement. The project eventually could create some 600 units at Yorktown.

Coming ‘full circle’

Crews over the past few months have been closing up the opening where shoppers used to walk from the mall into Carson’s. They’re doing interior demolition and taking down walls inside the shell, Lombard Building Director Keith Steiskal said Nov. 21. The exterior demolition is expected to start in the coming weeks.

The structure is a “very strong” concrete and brick building, Steiskal said. So it’s “not going to be something that comes down in weeks, but rather months.”

Steiskal described the demolition effort as a methodical process.

“They’re just literally going to take the steel out, start pushing brick in, start breaking concrete,” he said.

Meanwhile, work continues on the new Ancho & Agave restaurant at Yorktown. Specialty grocer The Fresh Market plans to open in fall 2025. The Empire Burgers + Brew restaurant and the Dave & Buster’s arcade/sports bar already have opened their doors.

That means more amenities “adjacent to our project,” Domenico said. The developer in turn supports the mall with residents to shop at and use all those new tenants.

“We believe Yorktown will serve as a model for other mixed-use projects around the country,” Rood said.

Domenico grew up in nearby Downers Grove and remembers going to the mall with his parents. He never thought he and his partners would buy a former department store.

“But we did it and now we’re demolishing it and building multifamily,” he said. “So it’s pretty neat to go basically full circle there.”

https://www.dailyherald.com/20241121/retail-and-shopping/apartment-developer-launches-yorktown-mall-project-first-phase-calls-for-271-units/