Edens Plaza
Edens Plaza is a strip mall in the town of Wilmette, Illinois. It was built by Carson Pirie Scott & Co. in 1956, and, until 2018, was anchored by one of their stores. It is located on a triangular parcel of land between Lake Avenue, Skokie Boulevard and the Edens Expressway.
Edens Plaza was one of the Chicago area's first regional shopping centers. After years of stalled efforts, the shopping center underwent a major reconstruction in the mid-1990s. Along with Harlem Irving Plaza and nearby Westfield Old Orchard, it is one of the Chicago area's oldest shopping malls. It is currently anchored by a Wayfair large concept store.
History
Background
The Edens Expressway opened on December 20, 1951. Its construction accelerated the growth in the development of Chicago's northern suburbs. Suburban growth in the 1950s spurred a boom in the construction of shopping centers throughout the Chicago area.The modern shopping mall did not come into fruition until the 1950s, following the 1950 opening of the Northgate Mall in Seattle. Thus, at the time which Edens Plaza first opened, modern shopping malls were a new phenomenon.
Before the 1950s, American shopping malls were still in a primitive state of their development. Early prototype shopping centers had been constructed in the United States. Wilmette's own Spanish Court was among these early shopping centers. Others included Cleveland Arcade, Dayton Arcade, Nashville Arcade, City Market, Lake View Store, Peachtree Arcade, Country Club Plaza ; Market Square, Camayo Arcade, Rhodes Center, Spring Valley Shopping Center, Briarcliff Plaza, Shirlington Shopping Center, Bellevue Square, Broadway-Crenshaw Center, Nob Hill Business Center, Brentwood Country Mart, Casas Adobes Plaza, Cameron Village and Park Forest Plaza.
Construction and opening
In the early 1950s, Carson Pirie Scott & Co noticed that suburban homemakers were making trips to their downtown location less and less frequently. Thus, they began constructing branch locations in the Chicago suburbs. First, Carson's constructed a 2-story location which opened in 1954, serving as the anchor tenant of Woodmar Mall in Hammond, Indiana. This was, in essence, proof-of-concept for the chain.Carson's began planning to construct an outlet in the northern suburbs of Chicago after their internal studies showed $17 million in missing revenue to be found annually in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Carson's quietly acquired a 20-acre triangular tract of land located between the intersections of Lake Avenue, Skokie Boulevard and the Edens Expressway between the years of 1948 and 1953. The location was selected because of its accessibility to automobiles, and because of Wilmette's relative proximity to the communities of Arlington Heights, Deerfield, Evanston, Des Plaines, Glencoe, Glenview, Golf, Highwood, Kenilworth, Lake Forest, Morton Grove, Northbrook, Northfield, Skokie and Winnetka.
This was the first shopping center entirely owned by Carson's. They chose to construct a shopping center, and not a stand-alone store, partially in an effort to compete with Marshall Field's. Marshall Fields was a partner in the construction of a shopping center of their own, located only a mile south of Edens Plaza along both Skokie Boulevard and the Edens Expressway. This was Old Orchard in the neighboring suburb of Skokie. It opened the same year as Edens Plaza with a Marshall Field's department store and retail space for 64 additional tenants.
The shopping center was named for its location along the Edens Expressway.
On May 5, 1953, Carson Pirie Scott announced their plans to construct a department store and retail center on the triangular tract of land they had acquired in Wilmette. The site was zoned residential. Therefore, on May 19, Carson's appealed to the Village of Wilmette for the site to be rezoning, allowing them to construct a "community shopping center.” Carson's chairman Bruce MacLeish argued that the site would never prove ideal for residential development due to traffic from the three bordering thoroughfares. Some Wilmette residents agreed that it made sense for the site to be zoned commercial by virtue of its location at the intersections of three arterial roadways. Many who supported the proposal believed that the tax revenues generated would lessen the burden placed on the rest of the village's property owners.
The proposed retail center was met by opposition from residents of the nearby 'Indian Hills' sub-division. They pointed-out that the rezoning would extend commercial operations along Skokie Boulevard, consequentially bringing traffic and congestion to the area. They argued that this could allow traffic to encroach upon their neighborhood's quiet streets, thus creating a hazard for their children, and would also decrease the property value of their residences. Those opposing the project additionally argued that it violated the spirit village's zoning ordinance and comprehensive plan, which intended to keep the character of the village primarily a single-family suburb, with retail limited to the extent that serves the population's immediate demand. Carson's, however, projected that their shopping center would not have a negative impact on existing local commerce, pointing to a survey that had determined the annual retail potential of Wilmette to be $27 million, which provided ample room for additional commerce to be added upon the village's existing $15 million in annual commerce. McLeish promised that he would build the best planned and most modern retail center in the nation, and displayed a scale-model of his plans. McLeish claimed that the planned structures would occupy only 20% of the site's land, thus would not be overdeveloped.
Just as Carson's was preparing to abandon their plans, the Wilmette Village Board granted approval to the project on February 17, 1954.
The design for Edens Plaza was created by the firm Anderson, Probst & White in collaboration with Welton Becket. Edens Plaza predated other Welton Beckett-designed malls, such as Christown Spectrum Mall, Walt Whitman Shops, Park Plaza Mall and Worcester Center Galleria. Its architectural design is reflective of Anderson, Probst & White's post-war abandonment of their previously trademark neoclassic style.
Edens Plaza cost 2.5 million dollars to construct. It consisted of a Carson's department store with an attached retail structure housing 24 stores, totaling a gross retail space of. The top of the buildings were adorned by bright salt-and-pepper glazed bricks trimmed by black bricks. The lower portions of the building were clad with warmer colored stone. There was a canopy on the sides of the a courtyard at the main entrance of the Carson's, providing shoppers with a covered walkway. The two-story Carson's department store served as Edens Plaza's anchor store.
The Carson's was the chain's fourth suburban location. At the time it opened on May 19, 1956, the Carson's was one of the largest department stores in the Chicago area outside of the Loop. It contained 100 departments, including every department featured in the chain's downtown location, with the exception of the basement department. Counters within the store were designed in a manner to make them easily movable, thus providing flexibility that would allow the store to be more easily readjusted. The store was designed to allow the addition of a third-story. The store had five separate entrances, allowing customers to easily access it from any part of the shopping center's 1,700-car parking lot. The main eastern entrance fronted a large planted flagstone courtyard. To the left of this entrance was a section of the store themed to Alice in Wonderland, which was meant to appeal to the children in the young suburbanite families which Carson's sought as clientele. There was an outdoor sales area located in the exterior arcade on the west side of the courtyard where patio, picnic, lawn and gardening products were displayed. The store contained an eatery named 'The Buffet'.
By February 1956, leases had been signed for ten of Edens Plaza's 24 retail spaces. Carson's opened May 19, 1956 and the entire shopping center opened later that summer in a ceremony officiated by the Edens Expressway's namesake, William G. Eden.
Subsequent history
At the time it opened, the area surrounding Edens Plaza was largely undeveloped. By the end of the 1956, Edens Plaza and Old Orchard's impact along the stretch of Skokie Boulevard running between them was evidenced with the opening of a Fannie May retail location along that section of Skokie Boulevard. In its first years, a lack of frequent public transit routes serving the shopping center proved to be an impediment to finding workers to fill job vacancies at Edens Plaza's stores. In 1957 American Coach company volunteered to operate a service at the shopping center, and Edens Plaza's management applied for approval from the Illinois Commerce Commission to operate such a bus service.Building upon the experience they gained in constructing Edens Plaza, Carson's began planning the construction of a far more ambitious mall two years after opening Edens Plaza.
The Carson Pirie Scott at Edens Plaza was, for the next three decades, one of the chain's most profitable locations, and served as one of the chain's flagship locations. The store was enlarged and renovated in a $600,000 remodel in 1966, which included the construction of a glass entrance rotunda. Additionally, in the 1960s, Edens Plaza was expanded with the addition of strip stores in its parking lot. This included the construction of a structure on the property's northern end, which would subsequently serve as the longtime site of a JoS. A. Bank Clothiers location. ‘’Edens Plaza Bank’’ was chartered in March 1971 and opened as a drive-through bank in Edens Plaza that June. Collectively, these expansions brought center's cumulative retail space to . In 1966 an office tower was constructed across Skokie Boulevard from Edens Plaza.
In 1974, Westlake Plaza, a retail center, was constructed across Lake Avenue from Edens Plaza.