From Stratford Square to ‘The Grove’: Bloomingdale unveils how former mall site will transform

Before the demolition of Stratford Square Mall, Bloomingdale leaders rolled out a bold new vision for redevelopment, complete with a birds-eye view of a central lake, restaurants, residences, a remaining department store and a spacious event lawn.

A little more than a year later, that future is taking shape.

Stratford Square, an enclosed mall dating to the 1980s, has been flattened, setting the stage for “The Grove at Bloomingdale.”

Instead of getting lost in a maze of windowless stores and endless mall parking lots, newly released renderings and the overall site plan for “The Grove” show a pedestrian-friendly, open-air mix of dining or entertainment, commercial or retail and gathering spaces. A large lawn area could host concerts, bag tournaments, a seasonal farmers market or winter ice skating. The parking is closer to the action, and the paths meander.

In the latest milestone, the village has announced a key development that will help bring it all to life.

The owner of the Naperville Yard plans a similar indoor sports and family recreation complex roughly northeast of Kohl’s, now a free-standing store.

What’s more, well-known regional restaurant groups have taken an interest in joining “The Grove” dining scene. A developer is also eyeing “The Grove” for a 280-unit luxury apartment complex as part of the first phase of the project.

“The obvious hope is that what we're creating there now allows you to replicate your experiences when it was Stratford in just a different way,” Bloomingdale Village President Franco Coladipietro said, “to create new memories there, to create new life experiences.”

Mall ‘wasn’t working’

In its prime, Stratford was a repository of memories. Shoppers from Bloomingdale and beyond flocked to its retailers. But about a decade ago, the mall lost a J.C. Penney. Macy’s and Carson Pirie Scott later closed. Sears shut down before the pandemic. Bloomingdale officials decided to step in, acquiring the old department stores and finally the core of the mall itself.

Coladipietro understands the emotional attachment to the mall. As a “kid from Joliet,” he worked at the Louis Joliet Mall and hung out in the food court.

“I have a deep appreciation of what Stratford meant to people, because at a certain point, during its heyday, it was a part of everyone's lives,” he said.

Stratford, though, “became something that was self-evident.”

“It wasn't as if you had to sell people on the idea that Stratford wasn't working. It just wasn't working,” Coladipietro said.

The village paid $17.1 million to acquire the five independent anchor pads and the interior mall space. It’s not in the business of purchasing property, Coladipietro told a standing-room-only crowd last year. But without village intervention, the mall would have continued to languish, officials have stressed.

“What we're announcing with the Grove, and then what we're going to announce going forward, I think that it reinforces that without the vision of the board and the steps that we took, that people were not going to make investments in the property,” Coladipietro said.

The village is working with Segovia Partners, Gravity Architecture & Design, Peak Construction Corporation and Christopher B. Burke Engineering on the redevelopment plans. The site falls within a tax increment financing district.

“There's been a lot of time and effort that's gone into doing this,” Coladipietro said. “And in these types of developments, success follows success.”

‘Committed to this project’

Bloomingdale Yard is slated to open in 2027, joining the chain’s indoor sports and rec centers in Westmont, Naperville and a Milwaukee suburb.

While park districts tend to focus more on courts, the roughly 100,000-square-foot complex will offer indoor fields and programming for both children and adults. The Yard also runs kids soccer classes, a full-service child care center and after-school sports.

Owner Bill Gust had long been interested in the property, even when the mall was still in operation. It is a “bit of a leap of faith at this point,” he said, on the leading edge of the redevelopment.

“But we take a lot of comfort in the mayor and village board and all of their staff. They've been very good to work with, and they're committed to this project,” Gust said.

The village has used loans to pay for the acquisition costs that will be repaid from the sale of parcels and TIF revenue. Officials expect to close on the sale of $52 million in bonds next week to fund the infrastructure work for “The Grove.”

Construction is set to start next year on public spaces, including a large lawn area and a man-made lake that will also serve as detention for the development.

“We want people to want to come to ‘The Grove’ because of the experience,” Coladipietro said. “You have this opportunity to have restaurants where you're essentially eating on the water kind of a feel.”

The village provided separate utilities for Kohl’s. So the retailer now has a free-standing building of its own. The village intends to retain ownership of some parking and sell off pads to restaurateurs, retailers and other developers.

“When I spoke last year about this, I had a forum at the golf club to roll this out. And people asked, ‘How long is this going to take?’ And I said, five to eight years maybe before the full build-out,” Coladipietro recalled. “So to be where we're at right now, I think it's amazing.”