Randhurst Mall Closing Day -- 9/30/2008

From the archives: roaming the mostly-empty shell of the original Randhurst Mall in Mount Prospect, IL on its final day of business. I met some strange people that night - but thank you again to the guy who had extra batteries in his car! As a heads up: I filmed this with a point/shoot camera back before I really did any half-serious video work; don't watch if you're prone to seizures or anything, it's really shaky.

The Randhurst Center (named after its location at the intersections of Rand and Elmhurst Roads) was one of the first regional shopping malls to land in the northern Chicago suburbs, opening in 1962. Its original anchor stores were Montgomery Ward (operating under "The Fair", a chain purchased by Wards in the late-50s, and converted to the MW name only a few years later), and local chains Carson Pirie Scott & Company, and Wieboldt's.

A masterpiece of architect Victor Gruen, it fared well in its first three decades of operation before succumbing to drastically-changing retail trends of the 21st century, plus fierce competition from Woodfield and other area malls.

By 2008 the mall had been significantly modified from its original design, and was mostly-empty except for its anchor stores - now Carson's (in the ex-Wieboldt's building), Costco (on the site of the original Carson's, which was later occupied by JCPenney and demolished in the 2000s), and Bed Bath & Beyond occupying part of what was once a Joseph Spiess department store (added in the 1980s). Montgomery Ward closed amid the chain's bankruptcy and was later mostly-demolished for a "promenade entrance" that never amounted to anything beyond a short-lived Applebee's.

The central mall area was closed on September 29, 2008, demolished the following year, and redeveloped into an outdoor lifestyle center known as Randhurst Village - retaining only the anchors of the original mall. Carson's at Randhurst Village is the only original 1962-built structure remaining, however as of 2019 it has closed with the bankruptcy of The Bon-Ton Stores.