The Chicago Plan Commission voted Thursday to approve a plan to demolish Chicago’s closed Ford City Mall, and replace it with a collection of warehouses and distribution buildings.
The $200 million proposal by Chicago-based Kurv Industrial drew opposition from many neighboring residents. They said the 61-year-old mall at 7601 S. Cicero Ave. had once been a gathering place for the West Lawn community, and replacing it with an industrial development, especially one that could bring a lot of diesel truck traffic, was a bad move.
“Ford City was for families and should remain for families, not warehouses,” said Esau Chavez of West Lawn Conservation Group.
Adolfo Castrejon, president and founder of the West Lawn Conservation Club, said he wasn’t against demolishing the empty indoor mall, which struggled for years with high vacancy and deteriorating physical conditions. But he said the surrounding West Lawn neighborhood needed a new community hub with housing, updated retail, parks and hopefully new transit options.
Several neighbors said they wanted a 180-day delay before deciding the property’s future.
“Once the land is given up to industry, it’s very hard to go back,” Castrejon said. “Not all development is good development.”
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Similar political fights have broken out across Chicago as proposals for new industry grow more controversial. Residents of South and West Side communities in particular say polluting industries were historically concentrated in Black and Latino neighborhoods, leading to dirtier air, water and soil.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has been on both sides of the issue. It’s pushing for the approval of new industrial development, including Kurv’s Ford City proposal, while also supporting the Hazel Johnson Cumulative Impacts Ordinance. Introduced in 2025, the ordinance would require industrial companies seeking new development permits to conduct community health assessments, ensuring their projects would not further damage public health.
Department of Planning and Development Commissioner Ciere Boatright said she did not dismiss concerns about air quality, or the desire to see Ford City replaced by new housing, but Kurv was the only potential buyer with a solid plan.
“We have yet to see any plans for housing on (a large) scale,” she said. “Nor are we seeing plans for large-scale retail for the site.”
Ald. Derrick Curtis, 18th, whose ward includes Ford City, told commission members that Ford City Mall had been on life support for years, and a developer like Kurv could easily take their proposal to nearby suburbs such as Bedford Park.
“We know we need revenue for the city of Chicago,” he said. “If we allow great opportunities to go right across the street, the revenue will go to the suburbs.”
Several Plan Commission members questioned whether Kurv’s Ford City plan had undergone enough community scrutiny. Many proposed developments are approved by the commission with unanimous or near-unanimous votes, but at least six members abstained from voting on Ford City.
Last summer, Chicago-based Kurv presented its first demolition proposal at a community meeting held by Ald. Curtis. The company now plans to replace Ford City’s old indoor mall at 7601 S. Cicero Ave. with four warehouse and distribution buildings no more than 45 feet tall, ranging from around 100,000-square-feet to more than 300,000-square-feet, and roughly 1,000 parking spots and several hundred loading docks. The Chicago City Council still needs to approve the development before Kurv can begin construction.
Outdoor tenants in the property’s North Mall and on other nearby lots, including Planet Fitness, IHOP and the AMC Ford City 14 movie theaters, all remain open for business and are not part of the developer’s plan.
Ford City Mall opened in 1965 and once had more than 100 stores, making it the premier shopping destination on the Southwest Side. But the rise of online retail killed off much of its business, leaving huge indoor stretches vacant.
Earlier this year, city attorneys sought to shutter the mall. They claimed the property owner, Namdar Realty Group, which purchased the mall in 2019 for about $16 million, allowed many problems to fester, including a malfunctioning fire suppression system, water leaks, open wiring, dirty conditions and poor lighting.
Anchor tenant JCPenney fought against a shutdown, insisting its store was still popular and profitable. But a Cook County judge eventually agreed with the city. He ordered Namdar to close the mall on June 22.
Castrejon and other Ford City neighbors were also busy this year. They organized several community meetings to push their alternative vision for Ford City, later holding a protest at Ald. Curtis’ office, and created online petitions denouncing Kurv’s industrial plan, garnering more than 1,000 signatures.
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Kurv did make a few adjustments to its original plan. Company officials said Thursday they will also include a public plaza, a new CTA bus terminal, exhibits that highlight Ford City’s history, open up 76th Street to the public, and create about eight acres of green space that separates the development from the residential area south of 77th Street.
Kurv officials told Plan Commission members that truck traffic will also be directed into interior courtyards and away from the nearby homes.
“This is a great opportunity to reinvest in a property that has been an important part of the Southwest Side,” said Jonathan Pozerycki, a partner with the firm.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, voted ‘no’ on Kurv’s proposal. He said community seemed to want more affordable housing, not industry, adding that the city should try harder to create jobs in an environmentally-sustainable way.
“It is a false dichotomy to say we can have one but not the other,” he said.