Belvidere Discount Mall is a small shopping mall located on Belvidere Street in

Waukegan ''(Fortress or Trading Post)'' , image_flag = , image_seal = , blank_emblem_size = 150 , blank_emblem_type = Logo , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivisi ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

, United States. It was one of the first shopping malls in the

Chicago metropolitan area The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...

, and the first enclosed shopping mall in Lake County. Its current main

anchor store In retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are typically located at the ends of malls. Wit ...

is a

Home Depot The Home Depot, Inc., is an American multinational corporation, multinational home improvement retail corporation that sells tools, construction products, appliances, and services, including fuel and transportation rentals. Home Depot is the l ...

. The mall is notable for reinventing itself over time to remain open, with a current store mix.

History

Belvidere Mall opened on November 18, 1965 and was Lake County's first enclosed shopping mall.("The mall opened Nov. 18, 1965, and was once the shopping mecca of northeastern Lake County... The cinema split into two, then four screens over the years and now offers only discounted, second-run movies... Good things began to happen in 1995 when Kmart Corp. built a 109,000 square-foot Builder's Square at the former Ward's site.") At its opening, it contained 35 stores and . The

s was

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

that had formerly been in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Waukegan. While the mall thrived at first, the opening of the much larger nearby

Lakehurst Mall Lakehurst Mall was a shopping mall in Waukegan, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The mall officially opened in 1971. The mall's anchor stores were JCPenney, Wieboldt's, and Carson Pirie Scott. After Wieboldt's closed in 1986, ...

in 1971 put a serious dent in Belvidere's fortunes. In 1988, sole anchor Montgomery Ward left for Lakehurst. After about seven years of being empty,

Builders Square Builders Square was a big-box home improvement retailer headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. A subsidiary of Kmart, its format was quite similar to The Home Depot, Menards, and Lowe's with floor space of about , and inventories in excess of 35 ...

occupied the anchor spot in 1995, and was replaced with Home Depot around 2000. A 1,000 seat movie theater opened at the mall in January 1966.("When it opened for business in January 1966, the Belvidere Mall Cinema was touted as 'the first motion picture theater' built in Waukegan in 38 years.") It was originally operated by the

General Cinema Corporation General Cinema Corporation, also known as General Cinema, GCC, or General Cinema Theatres, was a chain of movie theaters in the United States. At its peak, the company operated about 1,500 screens, some of which were among the first cinemas certif ...

as a single-screen, and later twinned before closing in the summer of 1989, with the mall in decline and General Cinema expanding the nearby

Lakehurst Cinema Lakehurst Cinemas (originally known as ''General Cinema Lakehurst 12'' until 2000) was a Multiplex (movie theater), multiplex movie theatre located in Waukegan, Illinois, United States, that operated from 1974 until 2007. History ''General Cinem ...

. In 1991 it was made a four-screen and reopened as a discount theater. In 2002 the Belvidere Theatres joined the reopened Lakehurst Cinemas as part of the Village Theaters chain, however Village closed the Belvidere operation at the end of 2003. The mall has been renovated twice, in 1985 and again in 1998. The mall is currently owned by Imperial Realty, who purchased it from original owners Landuau & Heyman Inc. in the fall of 1985. As part of the 1998 renovation, the mall was renamed Belvidere Discount Mall. Today Belvidere Mall differs from Lake County's other shopping malls,

Gurnee Mills Gurnee Mills is a shopping mall and outlet mall in Gurnee, Illinois, within the Chicago metropolitan area and it is one of the tourist destinations in Chicago, Illinois. Like the nearby Six Flags Great America and Great Wolf Lodge, the mall's place ...

and

Hawthorn Mall Hawthorn Mall, formerly Westfield Hawthorn, is a shopping mall in Vernon Hills, Illinois. It was developed by Urban Investment and Development Co, and anchor stores Sears and Marshall Field & Company (now Macy's) as part of New Century Town, a ...

because all of the tenants, except for

The Home Depot The Home Depot, Inc., is an American multinational home improvement retail corporation that sells tools, construction products, appliances, and services, including fuel and transportation rentals. Home Depot is the largest home improvement re ...

, are family-owned. Nearly all of them are

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...

-owned or Hispanic-oriented.("On a recent weekday night, the mall was crowded with shoppers, mostly Hispanics.... The stores cater to Hispanic and black families and, it appears, especially to teens looking for clothes, music and jewelry.")("About 80 percent of my customers speak Spanish and 20 percent speak English," said Kim, who commutes from Chicago.") Since 2019 the mall also embraced artists and creators in Waukegan, lending vacant retail spaces and the former Belvidere Cinema for use as galleries and music venues.

References

External links

Official websiteImperial Realty's Belvidere Mall site
{{Shopping malls in Illinois 1965 establishments in Illinois Shopping malls established in 1965 Shopping malls in Lake County, Illinois Waukegan, Illinois