Glenview Galleria

The Glenview Galleria is a declining mall in the north of Glenview.

History

The Glenview Galleria was proposed by the Rottweil Brothers, in 1969 and approved in 1971, The mall would replace an empty peice of land in north Glenview on the famous Ashfield Avenue. Ground was broken for the mall in February 1978 and most of the mall's stores opened in July 1979. The mall had a foodcourt, a large parking garage and 2 department stores, CJNickels and Shears. The only competitor nearby was the Western Winds Mall in Ashfield, which was hard to reach by car, so shoppers preffered the Glenview Galleria.

in the 1990s a subway entrance was built on the mall property, attracting many new customers from other areas in Greenfield.

Decline

The mall started its decline in 1991, when the Shears Department store closed down. With only one anchor, the mall was desperate for a new one, before other stores started closing down. The 1993 Earthquake struck Glenview and a fire started in the malls foodcourt. The mall was a huge target in looting and people broke down the main entrance doors and a woman drove her 1992 toyauto into one of the stores. As many people were running around, looting, or trying to find help a pickup truck with 4 people with guns pulled into the malls parking garage and they started shooting, looting the stores and killing two unfortunate victims. 4 restaurants and 2 stores burned down before fire rescue could make it to the site.

After the earthquake many of the destruction got fixed, but 3 stores closed down permanently.

Fortunately the mall struck a deal with the 16Theatre group and the former Shears Department store was partly rebuilt into the Glenview 16 Theatre in 2003.

In 2006 The nearby Downtown Greenfield mall had a huge expansion, with a brand new Jaycee's Department store and an expanded food court. Customers chose to go to the Downtown mall, instead of the Galleria.

In 2014 after loss of revenue, the remaining department store CJnickels closed down permanently, and moved to the Downtown Greenfield Mall after the huge boom of popularity of Downtown. With only one anchor left, the mall now started losing customers rapidly, other stores in the mall started closing down permanently or moving to other shopping centers in the area.

Even with the recent population boom of Glenview, The galleria is still in huge decline and many stores have closed down since 2014.

Future

The plan

The mall owners, Glenview Galleria Holding Coorporation have come together with the Salvatore Realty Group to make a plan for the galleria to be rebuilt into a 6 story luxury apartment building with 50+ Luxury apartment units, 20 affordable housing units, 10 retail units, a pool, an outdoor garden and a public parking garage on the main mall. The mall itselves will be refit into a large garden, with stores on both the large avenues, The plan is that many of the people who will live within the Galleria will cycle or take the subway to work, instead of using the car. The Former JCpennies department store will be rebuilt into a parking garage.

The Theatre and parking garage will be sold to the 16theatre group and the pedestrian bridges between the mall and the building will be taken down.

Controversy

The plan was released in April, and since then Glenview residents have come together and protested at the Santa Cabeza Library about the brand new apartment complexes, replacing the former culture of Glenview. As 7 large partment buildings, and many smaller ones have already been built the residents of Glenview are protesting against the mall redevelopment plan with the praise: Glenview<3Galleria. To stop new apartments from being built.