If location, as the real estate adage goes, truly is everything, then the mall known as One Schaumburg Place should have been elbow-to-elbow with shoppers by now.

It's next door to bustling Woodfield Shopping Center, the state's biggest tourist attraction. It has fine visibility, with its peaked roofs and a striking span of green-tinted glass and steel. It's a magnet to the eyes of passing motorists on Interstate Highway 290, and the area's demographics are a marketer's dream.

But though it is a striking sight outside, the 600,000-square-foot mall is a bust inside, and the reasons are something of a mystery.

"Maybe somebody put a curse on the property," said Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson.

Sure, other suburban malls have problems, among them centers in Waukegan, Park Forest and Elk Grove Village. But they're older and grew into decline. One Schaumburg Place opened in 1991, and it has been woebegone almost from birth.

More woe piled on earlier this month when Montgomery Ward, the biggest tenant, announced that it will pull out in May. That leaves only a handful of smaller stores, a restaurant on the first level, and a food court and a nine-screen movie theater on the second level.

But a deal is in the works that could give One Schaumburg Place the shot at success its original developers envisioned.

Galyan's Trading Co., which owns upscale sporting goods stores throughout the Midwest, has submitted a plan to Schaumburg for altering the north end of the mall. And Chicago real estate developer Daniel McCaffery is in negotiations to buy One Schaumburg Place.

Galyan's presence would be a magnet to other retailers, but the deal is far from closed. And McCaffery acknowledges that his negotiations for the mall have taken "a bit of a bad turn."

The one sure prospect for One Schaumburg Place's future is Maggiano's Restaurant and Corner Bakery, which is constructing a 270-seat, two-level, 25,000-square-foot building at the north end of the mall, at an estimated cost of $5 million.

Meanwhile, though, One Schaumburg Place is a melange of empty aisles and papered-over storefronts as tenant after tenant has retreated.

Some, such as PharMor, Child World and Highland Superstores, pulled out because of their own financial problems. Others, including Chernin's Shoes, Super Crown Books, Filene's Basement and Cruiseland Travel, left because of poor business or better opportunities elsewhere.

"We saw the end coming and had to make a decision," said Sonya Lovett, manager of the Cruiseland store, "When our customers walked into the mall and nobody was there, that's not good."

While all this was happening, another strip mall, Woodfield Village Green, went up on Golf Road opposite Woodfield Shopping Center, with the kinds of tenants One Schaumburg Place had hoped to attract.

The upstart center has been a resounding success.

In the world of malldom, One Schaumburg Place is neither fish nor fowl.

Its stores are arranged sequentially--that is, side by side--so it doesn't have the depths to be explored and corners to be turned of a traditional mall. But it is not a strip mall, because it is enclosed and has two levels.

The concept was to combine the best of two worlds: The easy linear access and roadside visibility of the strip mall, and the protected environment of the enclosed mall.

But that was then. This is now.

"There just doesn't seem to be a good market for an in-between shopping center," said Sidney Doolittle, a Chicago-based retail consultant. "It has a lot of presence, like a big billboard. But that alone doesn't pull people in."

The vacancies at One Schaumburg Place may be as much a product of the desire of the mall's management company to clear space for the kind of new tenants it has in mind: "Big box" stores, such as appliance and electronics retailers, which require a lot of floor space.

"It's not like the people here want to die. We want to make business. But they won't let us," said Lester Starr, owner-manager of Starr's Jewelry on the second level of the south wing.

Starr complains that the mall's management company, Mid America Real Estate Corp., does little to help, having halted advertising and recently shutting down an information desk on the second level.

Current leases are either being renewed for short terms or not being renewed at all, he said.

Mid America referred all questions to Bank of America, which took over the troubled mall two years ago. Bank officials declined to comment.

Some shoppers complain it has never been especially easy to enter and exit One Schaumburg Place. There is no sense of connection with Woodfield to the north. And One Schaumburg Place is hard to spot from Higgins Road, which borders the property on the south.

"I think the biggest problem is that it faces (Interstate 290). If you come from Higgins Road, you don't know it's here," said Christine Rohner, 18, a senior sales associate at Wards.

There also are no panoramic vistas when you enter One Schaumburg Place. One has to walk the entire length and back to find out what's where. And the mix of stores has not always justified the journey, shoppers say.

Still, Mayor Larson is optimistic about the future of One Schaumburg Place. Schaumburg is considered hot in the retail world, and the village has been besieged by a number of retailers who want prime office property re-zoned for commercial use.

But the village, said Larson, has no intentions of granting any such requests while there is unoccupied retail space available, such as at One Schaumburg Place.

"I'm convinced those market forces will cause One Schaumburg Place to fill up very rapidly," he said. "Where else are commercial retailers going to go?"