Yorktown Center Mall, Lombard, IL: What a Half-Century of Retail Looks Like

When Lombard Got Its Mall

Who remembers the moment when farmland in Lombard became something entirely new? In 1968, Yorktown Center opened with a rush of excitement and a promise to change how people shopped, ate, and spent time together.

People could park their cars under the endless Midwestern sky and step into cool air, past glass doors, into a space full of light.

Some came for the new stores, others for the comfort of climate control, and a few just wanted a reason to linger in the company of others.

Retail Strategy and Early Growth – Yorktown Center’s Opening Years

The year was 1968, and Yorktown Center stood on ground once planted with crops.

Victor Gruen and Sidney H. Morris were the architects behind the project.

Their plan used space generously: 1,300,000 square feet, a size no other American shopping center matched at the time.

Four big names lined up as anchors: JCPenney, Carson Pirie Scott, Wieboldt’s, and Montgomery Ward, each with tall, multi-story facades facing the central courtyard.

This layout shaped the daily rhythm for the first wave of shoppers.

Families parked near JCPenney or Montgomery Ward to get tires checked or batteries replaced while shopping inside.

North of the mall, the Convenience Center strip mall set up a Grand Union supermarket and drew neighbors in for groceries.

A General Cinema stood nearby, offering movie nights without a trip downtown, while two restaurants kept the parking lot busy well past dinner.

One odd detail never quite fit with the newness, the Boeger-Brinkman Cemetery, holding its ground along Butterfield Road.

The property changed hands, the land got paved, but the cemetery remained, a small link to Lombard’s farming past.

Some graves were moved, but others stayed behind.

In those first years, Yorktown Center buzzed with people chasing new trends and spending Saturdays beneath a steady hum of fluorescent lights, all under one roof.

Remodeling Realities and Anchor Departures – Retail Change in the 1980s and Early 1990s

By the mid-1980s, the novelty of Yorktown Center’s original look had faded.

Retail trends and expectations moved, and the property owners took up the challenge.

The mall shed its old, dark tiles and blank white surfaces, trading them for pastel colors and neon bands that looked right at home in the Reagan era.

Skylights came next, bringing natural light to corridors that had felt dim even on bright days outside.

Owners added freestanding elevators in each wing, and by the end of the decade, escalators appeared near the JCPenney and Montgomery Ward anchors.

These changes made it easier to navigate, but also signaled a shift in the way people used the mall.

Some tenants left for good. Wieboldt’s, one of the original anchors, shut its doors in 1987 as the entire chain went under.

The anchor spot sat empty for seven years before Von Maur took over, remodeling the shell and opening its first Chicago-area store in 1994.

That Von Maur location, with its distinctive layout, became the second largest in the company’s portfolio.

Around the same time, the old supermarket anchor in the north-side strip mall turned into a Scandinavian Design furniture store.

Unlike Oakbrook Center, which kept adding anchors through the 1980s and 1990s, Yorktown Center moved in the opposite direction.

Stores closed, and the list of retail vacancies grew.

When Madigan’s, a two-level clothing store near JCPenney, closed in 1992, its space upstairs stayed dark until a food court was built above and retail below.

New Concepts and Changing Tenants – Growth, Decline, and the Arrival of Entertainment

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Yorktown Center’s owners had to rethink both the mix of stores and how the mall could fit into a changing suburb.

Woolworth’s left in 1997, and for a stretch, that anchor spot sat unused until 1999 when Big Idea Productions, best known for VeggieTales, moved in.

They used the location as temporary office space while planning to rebuild the old DuPage Theater elsewhere.

However, construction delays and cost overruns kept them in the mall longer than expected.

After Big Idea moved to Tennessee in 2004, their spot turned over to Steve and Barry’s.

Activity at the mall’s edge told its own story. A Target Greatland opened in October 1996, bringing a national chain and steady traffic.

The JCPenney Auto Center was transformed into The Pacific Club, a nightclub managed by Walter Payton’s restaurant group.

Meanwhile, the General Cinema theater was demolished, making room for a new AMC dine-in megaplex with eighteen screens.

Development around the mall had setbacks, too. The Convenience Center’s anchor spaces cycled through several tenants.

After the Scandinavian Design store closed, Carson Pirie Scott picked up the space for a furniture gallery.

At the turn of the millennium, the central courtyard inside Yorktown Center got a makeover, old bridges were removed, and new escalators and a wider diagonal bridge went in.

For the first time, a customer service desk was added near the north-side escalator.

Shoppers saw a mall in transition, looking for a place between tradition and the next retail idea.

Ownership Shifts and Residential Strategy – The 2010s Pivot

The 2010s saw Yorktown Center pass from one set of investors to another, as the retail world looked for answers in a changing market.

In April 2012, a partnership between KKR and YTC Pacific purchased the property for $196 million, marking a new round of hope that fresh capital and big-name backers could steady the business.

Just two years later, in 2014, management invested $18 million in the food court, betting that healthy food stalls and family amenities would help keep the shopping floors busy.

These upgrades added 200 seats, flat screens for entertainment, and a family lounge, as well as charging stations for the crowds who brought their laptops.

In April 2018, Carson Pirie Scott, by then using the name Carson’s, announced a shutdown as the Bon-Ton holding company slipped into bankruptcy.

By the next year, the empty anchor’s shadow stretched over a mall that was struggling to find its place in the post-department-store world.

Still, some developers stayed optimistic.

Greystar, a national apartment owner, opened two properties called Elan and Overture on the north side in 2019, bringing luxury apartments to the edge of the parking lot.

The idea was simple: build new residences to support foot traffic and keep the mall grounds active, even as retail chains shifted strategies.

Despite these residential projects, high vacancy rates kept the mall’s perimeter from reaching its old peak.

Through all the turnover, JCPenney and Von Maur held on as anchor stores, weathering the uncertainties that came with changing times and new real estate logic.

Redevelopment, New Leasing, and the Mixed-Use Future – 2020s

The last few years have brought a new wave of construction and redevelopment to Yorktown Center, with property owners choosing flexibility over tradition.

In 2020, the mall decided to welcome dogs, becoming the first dog-friendly shopping center in Illinois.

Later that year, Pac-Man Zone opened, aiming for families and nostalgia seekers, as arcades found new relevance.

Development along the southern and northern edges accelerated.

In 2021, Lombard officials approved an Olive Garden for the south side; doors opened in 2023.

The north side changed, too, as D.R. Horton secured approval for a 90-townhome project called The Summit at Yorktown in 2022.

In 2022, Pacific Retail Capital Partners put forward a plan for the empty Carson’s spot, aiming to bring in apartments, shops that open out toward the street, and a park for public use.

Crews began tearing down the old Carson’s store in early 2025, aiming to finish the job by Spring 2025.

Clearing the site will make room for The Square, a green space covering more than an acre, set between the current mall and the future Yorktown Reserve apartments.

The initial phase of Yorktown Reserve is expected to be completed next year.

Financing for these plans landed in 2024, with $92 million raised.

Tax-increment financing from the Village of Lombard added $20 million in support.

On the ground, the mall’s anchor lineup has shrunk to JCPenney and Von Maur, but the lease roster has welcomed new restaurants such as Empire Burgers + Brew and Ancho & Agave, plus a Fresh Market grocery store slated for late 2025.

Through zoning, sales tax adjustments, and new leases, the property continues to test what a suburban retail center can look like in a new decade.

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