TL;DR: The last remnant of the former Lincoln Mall. In demo.

History: Chicago’s Carson Pirie Scott & Company both anchored and developed (via its Randhurst Corporation subsidiary) the Lincoln Mall in Matteson, IL, opening this 164,000 square-foot location as their 10th branch store in 1973. The regional department store offered upper-mid tier fashions, jewelry, fragrances, cosmetics, home decor, housewares, furniture, bedding, a ticket broker, and until sometime in the 1980s: the Heather Inn restaurant.

Common of its mid-century stores, this Carson’s boasted unique architecture with polished cream brick and brown accents. Entrances – both external and in the mall – were flanked by ribbons of red, yellow, orange and brown polished brick illuminated with recessed lighting between each layer; an eye-catching visual for the era that sadly went dark and unkempt in later years.

Signage was updated for a late-80s rebranding, and again sometime in the 1990s, likely coinciding with interior remodels.

Lincoln Mall generally fared well until the turn of the millennium: with the dual loss of Montgomery Ward to financial troubles in 1999, and JCPenney the following year as part of a large wave of underperforming store closings. In the mid-aughts, the mall attempted to launch a renaissance which included the demolition and planned redevelopment of those two anchor pads. The recession then hit and by around 2010 all renovation work had long ground to a halt – leaving the sites of JCPenney and Wards empty and overgrown, and an immediate portion of the mall itself in a state of partial-demolition riddled with both glaring and soon-to-show public safety hazards. The mall became known as an eyesore and within a few years was experiencing severe vacancy rates, costing another anchor – Sears – in 2012, leaving Carson’s to prop-up Lincoln Mall all on its own.

Broken promises, absurd mismanagement of village-loaned money, and decay creeping further into the mall led to Lincoln’s forced demise at the hands of a Cook County judge in January 2015. Carson’s remained open while the mall interior was cleared out in a public auction, sealed, then eventually cracked back open and put on blast by urban exploiters in November 2016. As the year turned, for a minute the place was hotter than hell, with photogs, vandals, illegal scrappers and bored locals picking and toying with the carcass until Matteson hired private security to watch it part-time.

The demolition of Lincoln Mall was finally completed the summer of 2017.

Carson’s itself deteriorated into irrelevance as the nameplate was passed through a decades-long string of corporate takeovers and mergers, each change further diluting its identity to Chicago. By 2006 it was in the hands of The Bon-Ton Stores, with half a dozen other regional department store names purged by Saks. Biting off way more than they could chew, Bon-Ton filed for Chapter 11 in February 2018, planned to slash its 42 weakest stores, and sought a buyer for the company which never materialized. Matteson, initially, was not named among those 42 stores.

On March 4, one month and thirteen days before the company liquidated: this store abruptly closed to the shock of Matteson officials, with staff and merchandise hastily transferred to other area locations. The building was never again occupied, by the end of the year its entrances were boarded and the sinkhole-filled parking lot barricaded. No explanation for the store’s sudden closure was publicly disclosed. Until now.

Explore: Long on our radar, we buzzed this spot many times after it closed, peeping doors and finding not only lights still on but an active alarm. I get the vibe that when Bon-Ton walked away, the property became tied-up in bankruptcy court over the next year or so (many of their vacant buildings were recently foreclosed on), and nobody really had access to it. Whatever the case, here, Matteson finally got their mitts on the property and quickly moved to tear it down – jumping into structural demo before they could even kill power.

It wasn’t until it was Facebook-official that we finally got our long-awaited look.

Interior demo was already well underway in the days leading to our intrusion, but much of the store was still recognizable. It became apparent that the only things removed before locking the doors were merchandise, cash, and things of a sensitive or immediately-profitable nature. Everything else – including fixtures, the entire visuals department, furnished offices with computers, warehouse equipment, even fully-stocked checkouts with POS terminals were all left behind.

Coming to the second floor, I confirmed what really closed this store: roof failure, as shared with me by former staff. The heavy rains and melting snow from 2018 winter’s end caused two small spots to cave near the womens department – toward the center of the building, north of the escalator atrium. The damage, I’m told, severed the building’s intercom and fire alarm systems. Elsewhere, where the ceiling was exposed, I found more crude patchwork on the underside of the metal roof.

I was told the store remained open in this state for three weeks, the damaged area cordoned off with buckets and trash cans catching water until the ailing Bon-Ton pulled the plug. While abandoned, roof water continued to pour in during further, torrential rains the area saw over the next near-two years, soaking the second floor to the point of growing black mold. A small manager’s office upstairs was covered floor-to-ceiling in the stuff and I couldn’t stay in it for more than a few minutes without feeling sick.

This building was left with no chance of reuse post-Bon-Ton, and is now the second Carson’s legacy store to be demolished since their demise. The site is now being cleared for a mixed-use development which may include a casino.

Man, does that ending sound familiar…

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