One reason I forgot the Super Bowl on Sunday was our excursion to St. Charles, Illinois. More specifically, we went to the Charlestowne Mall in the eastern part of that far suburb. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since we’d been there. A decade or more, probably.

So we were surprised to find the mall closed.


In the greater scheme of retail things, that’s not a surprise. A lot of malls have closed in recent years. I’ve written about that trend any number of times, but never had any reason to cover the Charlestowne Mall in particular, so I didn’t know its fate.

The mall opened in 1991, just ahead of the long slide for department stores, and when the notion of online commerce was still in the realm of speculative fiction. In other words, at an inauspicious moment for regional malls, but no one knew it at the time.

Most of the mall closed in 2017. Three of the four anchor department stores had gone dark by then, leaving only Von Maur open. As it still is.

The other open business at the mall is an 18-plex movie theater, which is where we were going. We had to circle around most of the mall to find it. The entrance was tucked away in a bleak alley-like passage, though marked by flags.

Word is that redevelopment of the site is in the works. The plan will retain the movie theater and Von Maur, but the rest of the site will be given over to residential properties and (possibly) a hotel, along with some green space. That too isn’t a surprise.