Lakehurst Mall was a

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

Waukegan, Illinois Waukegan ( ) is a city in Lake County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. Located north of Chicago, Waukegan is a satellite city within the greater Chicago metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, its population was 89,321, makin ...

, a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, United States. The mall officially opened in 1971. The mall's

anchor store In North American, Australian and New Zealand retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are ...

s were

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC , Trade name, doing business as JCPenney (colloquially Penney's and abbreviated JCP) is an American department store chain store, chain with 649 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. It is managed as part of the Catalys ...

, Wieboldt's, and

Carson Pirie Scott Carson Pirie Scott & Co. (also known as Carson's) is an American department store that was founded in 1854, which grew to over 50 locations, primarily in the Midwestern United States. It was sold to the holding company of Bon-Ton in 2006, but sti ...

. After Wieboldt's closed in 1986, its former location was divided between

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a mail-order business and later a department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001; its common nickname was "Monkey Wards". ...

and

Dunham's Sports Dunham's Sports is an American sporting goods retail chain owned by Dunham's Athleisure Corporation, with stores located in the Midwestern to Southeastern United States. The chain specializes in athletic equipment, clothing, firearms, and oth ...

. The mall declined in the 1990s, closed in 2001, and was demolished in 2004.

Beginning

In December 1968, of farmland close to the

Tri-State Tollway The Tri-State Tollway is a controlled-access highway, controlled-access toll road in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Originally U.S. Route 41 Toll, it follows: *Interstate 94 in Illinois, Interstate 94 from I-41/US 41 in N ...

was purchased from Thomas E. Wilson/Edellyn Farms for $2 million, and annexed into Waukegan, Illinois. Construction on the mall began about one year later, in September 1969. A five-year research project of Lake County had concluded that Lake County would be one of the fastest developing areas of the

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

. The mall was designed by Sidney H. Morris and Associates of Chicago and Gruen Associates of Los Angeles; Initially,

Arthur Rubloff Arthur Rubloff (June 25, 1902 – May 24, 1986) was an American real estate developer who founded Arthur Rubloff & Co. and is credited with naming and developing North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, into the "Magnificent Mile". Biography ...

& Co. of Chicago was the management and leasing agent for Lakehurst. The new 1.1 million square feet (102,000 m²) mall officially opened on August 19, 1971. Over 5,000 people attended the opening day ceremonies, including the mayor of Waukegan. Original

s of the mall were

, and Wieboldt's. 85 percent of the center had been leased by 1970. Other major tenants included Henry C. Lytton & Co., Chas. A. Stevens, and Hein's department stores, the latter of which also had a location in downtown Waukegan. Some of the mall stores included The Plum Tree, Orange Julius, Hallmark and Kinney Shoes. Lakehurstcps

2000s

Fewer than five tenants remained by 2000. These included the Gift Tree and Barbary Coast stores in the mall, as well as the Carson Pirie Scott anchor. When the leases on the two mall stores ended on January 31, 2001, most of the mall was shuttered, and only Carson's was in operation. During the mall's final days, a portion of the film "

5-25-77 ''5-25-77'', released as ''25-5-77'' in the United Kingdom, is a 2022 coming-of-age film written and directed by Patrick Read Johnson and produced by Fred Roos and Gary Kurtz. It stars John Francis Daley as a teenage director living in Wadswor ...

" was filmed inside the former KB Toys building. Lakehurstdemo

References

External links

DeadMalls.com on Lakehurst Mall
{{Shopping malls in Illinois 1971 establishments in Illinois 2004 disestablishments in Illinois Buildings and structures demolished in 2004 Demolished shopping malls in the United States Shopping malls established in 1971 Shopping malls in Lake County, Illinois Waukegan, Illinois Victor Gruen buildings