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FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS, OAKBROOK NOW A GIANT

By Martin Elder

Oakbrook Center calls itself the largest open-air center in the United States, with its six premier department store anchors and some 2 million square feet of retail space, but its origins are a lot humbler.

The center opened 40 years ago as a small community center in the town of Oak Brook, about 18 miles west of Chicago. Back then, the town had a population of 324. Developed by Urban Investment & Development Co., Oakbrook Center began with a 285,000-square-foot Sears and a 376,000-square-foot Marshall Field’s as anchors, a Jewel grocery store and some small specialty shops. It totaled less than 500,000 square feet.

The Oakbrook Center name was particularly apt, because the mall provided a gathering place for a town that never really had a traditional downtown. Since then, though, the town has changed considerably, and Oakbrook Center has had to change along with it. Today the community’s average yearly household income of $187,961 places the 8,702 residents well in the affluent range.

The center has undergone four major expansions. The first was the opening of a 102,000-square-foot Lord & Taylor in 1973, followed by the 1981 openings of an 80,000-square-foot I. Magnin, a 113,000-square-foot Neiman Marcus, a 92,000-square-foot Saks Fifth Avenue and more than 20 specialty shops. Then in 1987 the center added 60,000 square feet comprising additional specialty shops and four movie theaters, and in 1991, an extra 210,000 square feet of specialty stores and a 220,000-square-foot Nordstrom.

Today Oakbrook Center is one of the largest malls in DuPage County, and its shoppers come from much farther away than Oak Brook. It is the only Chicago-area mall with six anchors — Lord & Taylor, Marshall Field’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Sears — and it is also home to a four-screen cinema, 14 restaurants and 160 upscale specialty shops. The 130-acre property also has 350,000 square feet of office space and 12,500 parking spaces.

Today the center is owned by The Rouse Co., which acquired it through Urban Retail Properties as part of the breakup of Rodamco North America, Urban Retail’s owner, in May.

Rouse says it isn’t interested in expanding the center further. Rather, it is focusing on a modest renovation and the addition of tenants to help it stay ahead of other, more recent retail destinations that have cropped up in the Chicago area. Oakbrook Center’s closest competitors are upscale retailers on the famed Michigan Avenue in Chicago itself; Old Orchard Center in Skokie (opened in 1956); and Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, the largest in Illinois, at 2.3 million square feet. This past summer, Eileen Fisher and Max Studio arrived at Oakbrook, and shortly before Christmas 2002, Apple Computer, Jockey, Kidsnips, Pottery Barn Kids and Zutopia will be added. Its existing retailers include Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Burberry, Crate & Barrel, Gap, Guess, J. Crew, Kenneth Cole, Pottery Barn and Tiffany.

Some of the mall’s restaurants are Braxton Seafood, The Clubhouse (a 20,000-square-foot space combining dining, entertainment and shopping in a clubhouse atmosphere), Maggiano’s Little Italy, Mon Ami Gabi, Papagus and Wildfire.

The $7 million, seven-month enhancement project, due to be completed in November, includes new signage, better lighting and other cosmetic improvements.

“The shopping center looks great and is in great shape,” said Richard C. Fleming, Oakbrook Center’s vice president and general manager. “This is just an opportunity to give our retailers stronger identities with brighter lighting, better visibility and more self-expressive store fronts.”

By next month all retailers with nine-foot-high canopies will have them raised to 12 feet.

“Raising the canopies will give retailers larger, more visual and more self-expressive storefronts while better protecting our customers and visitors from possible inclement weather,” Fleming explained.

The enhancement will also include new, 14-foot-high, glass cross-canopies stretching from one side of the shopping center to the other, replacing the nine-footers made from steel and wood. Six 30-foot pylon signs at the center’s entrance have also been fixed up.

A key improvement has been to Oakbrook’s landscaping. (The center is renowned for its gardens and 15 crystal fountains.) Retailers are housed in elegant white brick and marble buildings, linked by sidewalks, plazas, fountains and pools, and artfully landscaped with 2,500 evergreens and some 700 trees and plants that include white birch trees, elms, maples and azalea plants. Flowers are changed three times a year — 125,000 tulips in the spring, 130,000 summer annuals and 75,000 chrysanthemums in the fall.

This landscaping has drawn garden clubs from a number of Midwestern states and has helped Oakbrook avoid becoming yet another big-box enclosed mall like those of the late 1970s.

Fleming said management briefly considered enclosing Oakbrook Center in 1990, before its last major 210,000-square-foot expansion (1991), but the community and shoppers opposed the idea.

To minimize disruption to shoppers, most of the work has taken place on Sundays through Thursdays, after business hours.

Fleming noted that Oakbrook Center’s store occupancies have maintained a solid 98 percent average in the past 15 to 20 years, and more than 25 million people visit the property each year from the Midwest and around the world.

He added that several original tenants are still in place.

“We’ve grown from being a small community center to having a regional presence with great access and a trade area that extends to Chicago’s western and northwestern suburbs, let alone the Greater Chicago area,” Fleming said.

Access to interstates 88, 290 and 294 places Oakbrook Center (located on the corner of Route 83 and Cermak Road) within minutes from downtown Chicago and the area’s 1.2 million residents. Several Fortune 500 companies are located within five miles of the center, including McDonald’s Corp., Lucent Technologies and ServiceMaster Co. A large daytime market of 250,000 workers and a strong hotel and convention business, including Hyatt, Marriott, Oakbrook Hills Resort and Renaissance, are located within five miles too.

Oakbrook Center enjoys a trade area that extends 10 to 15 miles around itself. The market includes 1.3 million people, accounting for 70 percent of the center’s sales. This wider area’s average household income is $83,600; 124,900 households have income over $100,000.

Besides serving the region, Oakbrook Center also attracts tourists and is the primary tourist attraction in DuPage County, which is ranked second among Illinois’ top five counties for tourism, Fleming said.

Though the center is known for its wide array of specialty shops, restaurants, department stores and attractive garden and park-like settings, it also offers entertainment for both locals and tourists alike. The Annual Classic Car Show on Father’s Day, for example, attracts families, history buffs and auto enthusiasts from around the world. The Craft Exhibition in July and the Fine Art Exhibition in September, where exhibitors show their work for two days, attract between 100,000 and 150,000 visitors.

Although it’s a popular shopping destination throughout the year, about half of the people visiting the center come during the holidays, says Fleming. The holiday mood is accentuated by stores outlined with tens of thousands of lights, and by Christmas trees and wreaths placed throughout the mall. In the spring, summer and fall, visitors enjoy the center’s floral outdoor ambience. Year-round they come for its restaurants, movie theaters, several upscale specialty shops and six department stores. It has certainly come a long way since opening to provide a meeting place for a town of 324.

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