Shopping mall in Deerfield, Illinois
Deerbrook Mall is a shopping mall[1] in Deerfield, Illinois. Located on 47.45 acres, its anchor stores are Marshalls, The Dump Furniture Outlet, Office Depot, Hobby Lobby, and Jewel Osco. Former anchors include Best Buy, Bally Total Fitness, Old Country Buffet, Blockbuster Video, GameStop, OfficeMax, Sports Authority, TJ Maxx, Venture, Wonder, The Great Indoors, Art Van Furniture, and Bed Bath & Beyond. The mall is located on Waukegan Road, north of the Edens Spur and south of Lake Cook Road. The mall is a low priority for its developer, as its website has not been updated since 2018, as seen in the website's property map.[2]
History
In 1970, 30 acres of land were purchased from Louis Werhane, a local farmer, with the plan to develop it into a mall.[3] Primary construction was completed in 1971, with the mall's name being chosen by the winner of a drawing. The name is a combination of the two towns which the mall primarily serves: Deerfield and Northbrook.
Originally the internal theme of the mall was of a communal street scene with streetlamps and water fountains featuring brass frogs and other sculptures of aquatic marine life. Sunken communal seating areas contributed to the small-town Main Street-like feel. The floor is mostly made of heavily lacquered-over red and brown bricks.
Venture, the now-defunct retail chain, was a ten-year tenant in the mall.[4] Previous to Venture, the space housed a Turn Style store. Venture closed and vacated the space in January 1989. Other large retailers who vacated the mall, primarily as a result of the economic failure and reduction of the chains themselves, include Service Merchandise, Spiegel Outlet, John M. Smyth's Homemakers, and Montgomery Ward. Marshalls originally occupied the interior space, hosting T.J. Maxx. Montgomery Ward also operated an auto repair and tire facility in a separate outbuilding immediately southeast of the main mall, built in 1986 and last occupied by Bally Total Fitness, and closed in the summer of 2012 the building was eventually torn down.
Best Buy, which occupied the former Spiegel space, closed in 2012.[5] The former Best Buy space became a Hobby Lobby in 2015. The former Service Merchandise space was later, briefly occupied by The Great Indoors, and then for three months [6] by a local children's superstore called Wonder!.[7] In 2014, TJ Maxx, the last remaining tenant of the interior mall,[8] announced that it would be relocating.
Deerbrook Mall formerly housed a four-screen General Cinema movie theater, which opened months after the mall's opening as a twin (a two-screen) during an expansion. Two auditoriums were added in the 1980s. The theater closed in 2001[9] amid the company's bankruptcy and never reopened.
In 2017, the theater, storefronts, mall interior and Ulta Beauty were demolished to make way for new construction between Hobby Lobby, south and Art Van Furniture, north. Sports Authority had closed their store as part of the chain's bankruptcy in 2016. Art Van Furniture [10] [11] opened Wednesday December 13, 2017, in the former Sports Authority location. OfficeMax closed on Saturday, December 16, 2017.
On March 5, 2020, it was announced that Art Van Furniture would be closing as Art Van prepares to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and the location was eventually closed.[12] On April 24, 2023, the closure of all remaining Illinois Bed Bath & Beyond stores was announced, and the location liquidated and closed.[13]
On October 24, 2023, it was reported that a townhome complex named "Springs at Deerfield" would be built behind the mall.[14]
1994 fire
In May 1994, a fire broke out in the Bed Bath & Beyond store.[15] 12 separate towns' fire departments and the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System responded to the blaze, which began on the loading dock and spread to the interior of the store, damaging merchandise and the interior ceiling.
Renovation
In 1998, Atlanta-based Lend Lease Real Estate Investments Inc. (Lendlease Group) acquired Deerbrook Mall on behalf of one of its public pension fund clients from Valenti Builders, a Northfield, Illinois based company.[16] The new owners began a major interior and exterior renovation to update the aging mall which had been plagued by high vacancy rates. Subsequent major renovations between 2015 and 2017 included demolition of the enclosed portion of the mall in favor of major standalone anchor tenants.[17]
