Standing at the southwest side of Touhy Avenue and McCormick Boulevard in Lincolnwood, Illinois, is a two-level enclosed shopping mall now coming down in pieces.
It opened on March 15, 1990, as Lincolnwood Town Center, anchored by Carson Pirie Scott and Madigan's. Madigan's lasted a year. JCPenney replaced it, and Kohl's took the same building in 2002.
The mortgage matured unpaid in April 2021 and the lender took the property. A local development group bought it in December 2025 for a reported $12.3 million. Demolition began June 25, 2026.
The enclosed mall closed to the public after July 23. Kohl's is still trading, with no closing date announced. The plan for the site calls for a large store and a car dealership, and final zoning hasn't been granted.
Bell & Howell was leaving, and the arguing went public
Bell & Howell spent 42 years on McCormick Road, making cameras, projectors, and lenses there.
In July 1984, the company decided to close its headquarters there and move roughly 600 employees to Skokie and Evanston.
By that fall, Lincolnwood was holding public hearings on what should replace it.
The first proposal was enormous: a shopping center of about 1.2 million square feet. Trustees rejected it.
A year later the company still had no reuse plan for the tract, and by April 1986 it was negotiating a sale and preparing to shut down its remaining audiovisual manufacturing in the village by November.
A smaller plan came back, paired with senior housing and office-showroom buildings.
It passed in 1987 only because Mayor Frank Chulay broke a tie on the board.
The mall in that version was about 430,000 square feet, roughly a third of what the village had turned down.
Some Skokie merchants argued that a new regional center would pull spending out of their stores.
Lincolnwood Town Center opened in March 1990
Lincolnwood Town Center opened on March 15, 1990, a two-level enclosed mall at 3333 W. Touhy Avenue in Lincolnwood, Illinois, at the southwest side of Touhy and McCormick Boulevard.
Vanna White, then known from "Wheel of Fortune," signed autographs at the grand opening.
Carson Pirie Scott took one end at about 124,000 square feet. Madigan's took the other at about 104,000.
Between them the developers laid out close to 90 shops and kiosks across two floors, with the food court upstairs.
Sbarro was there early. So was Fluky's, the Chicago hot dog chain.
The building was compact for a regional mall, and the plan aimed at middle-income shoppers rather than the fashion trade going to Woodfield or Old Orchard.
Two floors of stores in a small footprint, at a busy suburban intersection.
Madigan's failed almost immediately.
The Lincolnwood store closed in 1991 after about a year, which left 104,000 square feet empty at one end of a mall that had been open barely longer.
JCPenney moved into the space later that year.
Coins in the fountain, 98 percent full
Center court ran two stories high, with skylights, planters, heavy planting, railings along the upper level, and a fountain with mermaid figures that sprayed water.
Visitors threw coins into it. Other years the court held temporary attractions, including a large sandcastle people still bring up.
Escalators, elevators, and stairs tied the floors together, and the grade around the building meant one entrance let you in on the lower level while another put you upstairs.
The anchor at the northwest end kept turning over. JCPenney ran about a decade and closed in 2001.
Kohl's opened in the same building in 2002 and stayed for more than two decades.
The place stayed full through all of it. Occupancy finished 2003 at 98.1 percent, and Simon reported the mid-90s or better for years after.
The property was unencumbered before it took on a mortgage in 2014.
Fire trucks in the lower lot, Santa inside
On September 6, 2014, 17 vehicles rolled into the mall's lots, including fire trucks, a school bus and a postal truck.
Touch-a-Truck came back most years; the 2013 edition used the lower-level lot by Kohl's.
Santa photos ran November 20 through December 24 in 2015. A December pet night sent dogs in through the lower-level main entrance, leashed or caged.
Halloween ran in center court, 6 to 8 p.m., with trick-or-treating store to store.
Buses used the property too.
CTA routes 82 and 96 and Pace routes 210 and 290 stopped here, with an upper-level transfer point west of Carson's, so riders could wait indoors between connections.
The retail underneath was thinner than the headline number.
At the 2014 refinancing the mall was 96.2 percent occupied, and nine of those tenants were selling under $300 per square foot.
That May it transferred to Washington Prime Group, the company Simon spun off to hold the malls it no longer wanted.
Carson's left in 2018. Furniture moved in.
The Bon-Ton liquidated in 2018, and Carson's closed that August after 28 years in the building it had opened the mall with.
Washington Prime moved fast on the empty box.
The RoomPlace opened on August 16, 2019, about 84,000 square feet on two floors, with an atrium, its own exterior doors on two sides, and one entrance into the mall.
The conversion was put at $16 million to $18 million and pushed reported leasing back above 80 percent.
Nine months later the mall skipped its May 2020 mortgage payment.
A six-month forbearance deferred principal and interest into November, with whatever remained due at maturity.
The loan matured unpaid on April 1, 2021, and a receiver was appointed that month.
Washington Prime filed for Chapter 11 in June and treated Lincolnwood as a property it didn't need. By that autumn the lender owned it.
Kohl's, The RoomPlace, Old Navy, and dozens of smaller stores kept trading. The food court was eventually roped off as its vendors disappeared.
The village looked at seizing the land
Lincolnwood didn't wait for the mall to finish emptying.
The Village Board adopted a redevelopment concept plan in 2022 offering three versions of the same idea: keep both anchor buildings and clear the middle, keep only Kohl's, or take everything down and cut a new street grid across the site.
Nothing was built. The lender marketed the property, no buyer committed, and stores kept leaving.
On August 19, 2025, trustees told staff and the village attorney to study eminent domain.
Harlem Furniture, operating by then in the old Carson's building, closed late that year with the rest of the chain's Chicago-area stores.
On December 19 the village was notified that a local development group had bought the mall for a reported $12.3 million.
The same property had appraised at $89.1 million in 2014.
In April 2026 the board and the new owners agreed on a framework: a store of 150,000 to 175,000 square feet, an automobile dealership, and other commercial space, with a November 2026 deadline to apply for final zoning.
Kohl's is still open while the rest comes down
Demolition machinery reached the former RoomPlace and Harlem Furniture building on June 25, 2026.
Crews stripped out metal, drywall, ductwork, and wiring first, then took the structure down and hauled the steel away.
The mall traded on around it at reduced hours, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The buses went before the stores did.
Pace Route 290 stopped pulling in at the end of May, and on June 29 the CTA moved the Route 82 terminal to the northwest end of the lot in front of Kohl's and kept Route 96 out on Touhy.
July 23 was the last day.
The village had counted about nine tenants in late May, down from 42 when the property changed hands in December, and around 11 businesses had asked for help finding new space.
Five landed elsewhere in Lincolnwood, including Modern Nails at 3925 W. Touhy Avenue and Paint and Party at 4277 W. Touhy.
Kohl's is still open. Its parcel sits in the third demolition phase and has no announced closing date. Route 82 riders board in front of it.
The crushed concrete from the first building is stockpiled at the southeast corner of the property, held for roads that don't have final zoning yet.
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