‘A fantastic addition’: Fresh Market grocery store coming to Yorktown mall

Yorktown Center will add a grocery store to its roster of new restaurants and nontraditional tenants as part of a larger redevelopment of the shopping mall in Lombard.

The vacant Carson’s department store soon will be demolished to make way for “The Square,” a communal outdoor space. Developers have built apartments and townhouse units around Yorktown in recent years, and a mall revitalization plan calls for more residential construction. In another sign of the evolution, a Fresh Market grocery store is expected to open next year.

“Generally, grocery stores weren’t at regional malls, and more and more of them are rethinking that strategy, and particularly having that built in-audience of residents in multifamily, high-density developments at malls,” said John Melaniphy, president of the retail consulting firm Melaniphy & Associates. “So this makes tremendous sense.”

A Dave & Buster’s arcade/sports bar just opened at Yorktown. The Fresh Market store will be 26,466 square feet and across from the new Empire Burgers + Brew restaurant.

“All malls around the metropolitan area are trying to reinvent themselves, and many of them are adding residential components in addition to new restaurants and retailers, and even others have considered hotels like the Westin near Yorktown mall,” Melaniphy said.

In Vernon Hills, apartments also are a key component of the ongoing redevelopment of the Hawthorn mall campus. Gone is its old Sears anchor store. Demolition fencing is now up around the site of the former Carson’s building at Yorktown.

“That category has been impacted by e-commerce,” Melaniphy said of apparel retailers. “And so that is why they’re adding grocery because still many consumers actually go out and visit a physical brick-and-mortar store, and then they do so on a frequent basis.”

Yorktown is “transforming the traditional shopping experience to become a live, shop, play, dine campus,” said Gayle Gleespen, marketing and business development manager.

Another new restaurant, Ancho & Agave, a taco and burrito place, is scheduled to open at Yorktown in December. Gleespen described “The Square” as a place to have a picnic or hang out with your dog — the mall is canine-friendly — or take a stroll across the property. She called Fresh Market, a chain with roots in North Carolina, a “beloved grocer.”

“With the walkability at the mall … this will be a fantastic addition to their tenant mix,” Melaniphy said of the planned Fresh Market.

It’s not a “70,000-square-foot grocery store” like some Jewel, Mariano’s, Fresh Farms and other supermarkets, he said.

“They take up less space, and yet they provide that convenience of grocery shopping for their new residents,” Melaniphy said.

Malls around the country as well as around the Chicago metropolitan area are adding residential uses, he said.

“I believe that more of them will also add grocery,” Melaniphy said. “And I’ve even seen home improvement retailers being added to malls.”

• Daily Herald staff writer Mick Zawislak contributed to this report.