The Evanston Plaza Shopping Center at the intersection of Dempster Street and Dodge Avenue will go to foreclosure auction May 3, according to the City of Evanston’s website.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office will conduct the auction of the plaza, where stores such as Dominick’s, Citi Trends and Dunkin Donuts are located.
The shopping center has struggled financially over the past few years despite city staff’s efforts to help, said Stephen Griffin, Evanston’s director of community and economic development.
No other area of the city is facing similar issues, he said. The city’s economic staff contacted the owners and tried to find tenants but, faced with increasing vacancy rates at the shopping center, the companies contacted chose to relocate to other parts of the city.
The last tenant to leave was A.J. Wright, which closed earlier this year. Although city officials contacted TJX Companies, which owns A.J. Wright, asking for it to rebrand the anchor store to a T.J. Maxx instead of vacating the location entirely, company representatives said the store would still be closed, Griffin said. Evanston mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl, six aldermen and local business owners sent a video message to the company last December in addition to asking citizens to forward their complaints, but the store closed this February, leaving a 60,000-square -foot vacancy in the shopping center.
Aside from loss of business, safety issues have plagued the area. An Evanston police officer shot a 17-year-old boy a few blocks north of the plaza in January, and a teen shot another at the McDonald’s across the street from the plaza earlier this month.
The City’s Economic Development Division is following the foreclosure closely.
