River Oaks Center is 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 ...

Calumet City, Illinois Calumet City ( ) is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 36,033 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area. History Calumet City (commonly referred to locally as "Cal City") was founded in 1893 ...

, 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 ...

south of

Chicago 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 ...

. River Oaks Center is the seventh largest mall in the Chicago metropolitan area totaling . Today, there are over 60 stores and two anchors including

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 ...

and

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

with two vacant anchors last occupied by

Carson's 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 st ...

and

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

Namdar Realty Group Namdar Realty Group is an American shopping mall investment company based in Great Neck, New York. They primarily purchase dead mall, dying or dead shopping malls with partner Mason Asset Management. Namdar and Mason are both family owned, and as ...

and Mason Asset Management manages and owns River Oaks Center.

History

It opened in 1966 and was a development of KLC Ventures, a firm that included the pioneering developer Philip M. Klutznick and his son Tom. The elder Klutznick had developed

Park Forest, Illinois Park Forest is a village and south suburb of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, with a small southern portion in Will County, Illinois, Will County. The village was originally designed by Loebl Schlossman & Hackl, Loebl Schlossman & ...

, after World War II, as well as

Oakbrook Center Oakbrook Center is a shopping center established in 1962 and located near Interstate 88 and Route 83 in Oak Brook, Illinois. It is the second largest shopping center in the Chicago metropolitan area by gross leasable area, only surpassed by ...

in Oak Brook in 1962 and

Old Orchard Shopping Center Westfield Old Orchard, formerly Old Orchard Shopping Center, is a shopping center in the Chicago metropolitan area. It is located in Skokie, Illinois. The shopping center features the traditional retailers Macy's and Nordstrom, in addition to a ...

in Skokie in 1956. River Oaks originally opened as an outdoor shopping center with one minor and two major department stores. The original anchors were

Marshall Field's Marshall Field & Company (colloquially Marshall Field's) was an American department store chain founded in 1852 by Potter Palmer. It was based in Chicago, Illinois and founded in the 19th century, it grew to become a large chain before Macy's, ...

, which built a store,

, and a branch of Edward C. Minas Company, which was based in nearby

Hammond, Indiana Hammond ( ) is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. Located along Lake Michigan, it is part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the only city in Indiana to border Chicago. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the Li ...

. Other major stores included a Jewel supermarket and

Osco Drug Osco Drug and Sav-on Drugs were the names of a pair of chain pharmacies that operated in the United States. Osco Drug was founded by the Skaggs family. Alpha Beta grocery store was purchased by American Stores in 1961. Skaggs Drug Centers bou ...

at the south end, and a S. S. Kresge dime store next to Sears. Kresge closed in 1987 and became a

movie theater A movie theater (American English) or cinema (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business ...

, while the closure of Jewel made way for a

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

restaurant and a second theater complex. Many of the stores in the mall in its first 20 years were outposts of Chicago retailers, including Chas A. Stevens,

Kroch's and Brentano's Kroch's and Brentano's was the largest Bookselling, bookstore in Chicago, and at one time it was the largest privately owned Chain store, bookstore chain in the United States. The store and the chain were formed in 1954 through the merger of the ...

and C.D. Peacock.

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 ...

took over the Edward C. Minas store in 1982. In 1985, the mall was expanded when

moved its store from downtown

, to the northwest portion of the mall's parking lot. A new wing was also built to connect JCPenney to the mall and a

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food Vendor, vendors and provides a common area for self-serve di ...

was added on the enclosed lower level. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the then owner, JMB Corp. of Chicago, had several plans to expand and enclose the outdoor mall. These plans included adding a second level and possibly a fifth department store at the end of the southeastern wing of the mall. These plans coincided with Chicago's Lake Calumet Airport which would have been just a few miles north of the mall and would have transformed the area around the mall into an office and business hub. However, these plans never materialized and finally, in 1993, JMB began a smaller version of the redevelopment which included additional retail space and enclosing the common areas mall. In 1994, the redevelopment was completed. The mall was enclosed and of

gross leasable area In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured in square metres or square feet) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the bui ...

was added. New retailers opened at the mall and the tenant mix became more upscale bringing in some retailers who had not yet located in the Southern Suburbs. The mall's size was brought up to making it the largest mall in the South Suburbs. Carson Pirie Scott, by then renamed

, closed in January 2013.

closed on June 9, 2013. On June 4, 2020,

announced that it would close, as part of a plan to close 154 stores nationwide. However in August 2020, it was announced that this store would stay open. In late 2019, a new anchor to the southeast wing of the mall was proposed, th
Southland Live Casino
If approved by the Illinois Gaming Board, a temporary casino would have initially opened in the former Carson's, until a permanent 150,000 square foot casino was constructed, followed by a 200 room hotel. The site was expected to be approved by October 2020, but the decision was delayed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. In October 2021, the casino proposal was rejected by state regulators.

Surrounding area

River Oaks West

The Landings

Bus routes

Pace * 353 95th/Dan Ryan CTA/Calumet City/Homewood * 358 Torrence * 364 159th Street

References

{{Shopping malls in Illinois Shopping malls established in 1966 Calumet City, Illinois Shopping malls in Cook County, Illinois 1966 establishments in Illinois Namdar Realty Group