Interior Mall Area To Be Demolished

By Shawn McGrath

LAPORTE -- If you’re eager to know what new retail stores will be opening in the former Maple Lane Mall, you’ll have to keep holding your breath. Local real estate agent Jay Pouzar said Friday that interest in LaPorte Towne Square is picking up, but no businesses have agreed yet to come to the west-side mall that’s languished for years with empty storefronts. Pima LaPorte LLC acquired the 230,000-square-foot indoor mall and the buildings that contain Al’s West, The Buck Stop, Kmart, Advance Auto and Christo’s in May 2005.

Photo: By Bob Wellinski The interior of LaPorte Towne Square, devoid of all but a few stores, is shown Monday.

Don’t expect big-box stores in the retail center that stretches from Al’s Valueland on the east end of the complex to Kmart on the west end. Instead, Pouzar said, junior big-box stores are more a reality, ranging in size between 25,000 and 35,000 square feet each.

To accommodate four to five such stores, Pouzar said the interior mall area will be demolished. People would enter the retail shops like they would enter the nearby Kmart -- through individual store entrances off the sidewalk.
Eliminating the interior mall area that saw its peak in the 1980s when Levine’s and Sycamore operated there is just the trend of shopping these days, according to Pouzar.

“They don’t do indoor malls right now,” he said.

Demolition would be done next year, and then, according to Pouzar, it’s about “bringing this (mall) up to a 2007 shopping center.”

He insisted that management would like to relocate the few stores operating inside the mall, including Majerek’s Hallmark, somewhere on the grounds of LaPorte Towne Square.

“We’ll take care of our tenants. We don’t want to lose them,” Pouzar said.

The mall owners, a handful of investors in the Chicago area, purchased 10 acres behind the mall building to accommodate more retail space.

While there would likely be new construction behind the existing mall, there will also be some in front of the mall. A strip mall, up to 15,000 square feet, will begin construction before year’s end in an area between Walgreens and the BP gas station along the south side of Ind. 2 West. The empty area is former site of a Martin Oil service station. The aim would be to build a roadway to link the strip mall with the rest of the shopping center.
The LaPorte City Council introduced a resolution Monday that would set into motion plans for establishing a tax increment financing district at the mall area to pay for infrastructure improvements.
A long-standing hurdle that Pouzar is trying to overcome is getting national retailers to consider LaPorte as a place to operate.

“They aren’t aware of us,” he said. “You have Kmart and Wal-Mart (in LaPorte), but beyond that there aren’t any national chains.”

Story posted: 10/18/2006