Dozens of Little Village Discount Mall vendors, unable to operate since leaving the West 26th Street shopping center in March, have a new space lined up — and $500,000 from the city to help them get started, Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) announced Friday.
“After several weeks of uncertainty, they acknowledged the Discount Mall vendors were left out,” Sigcho-Lopez said at a news conference outside Second Federal Bank in Little Village.
“There is a commitment from the city of Chicago to work with the vendors,” he added, to help cover rent initially at a new location at 51st Street and Kedzie Avenue in Gage Park.
Sigcho-Lopez represents the 25th Ward, which includes the shopping center at 26th and Albany streets, where many of the vendors had operated since the mall opened in 1991.
He was joined at the news conference by Ald. Mike Rodriguez (22nd) and incoming 14th Ward Ald. Jeylu Gutierrez.
The $500,000 would come from the federal American Rescue Plan Act; Sigcho-Lopez said it is hoped the vendors will be operating in the new location by May 15, when Mayor Lori Lightfoot leaves office.
Previously, there had been a plan for the vendors to open at a former CVS in Little Village, but vendors complained the space was too small.
The space in Gage Park, a former Kmart, is 120,000 square feet — about three times the space the vendors had before. It’s about three miles south of the Discount Mall.
The city did not acknowledge the explicit terms Sigcho-Lopez outlined Friday, but issued a statement that “the City is committed to working to secure necessary funding for a vendor pop-up contingent on identifying a local chamber to facilitate a funding agreement.”
Sigcho-Lopez said the city had not signed a formal agreement, but that the hope is to work out the details next week.
Not all vendors displaced from the Discount Mall will move to the new space, but because it’s so much bigger, they hope others will join. They even have a new name in mind: “Megamall.”
The vendors that left the mall were under a management company that could not come to a lease agreement with new property owner John Novak of Novak Construction.
Dozens of other vendors, under a different management company, will remain at the mall, Novak announced in February.
The meeting Friday was also attended by dozens of the vendors who will move to the new location.
“I’m glad there’s a dialogue now,” said Juan Zarate, who comes from a family of Discount Mall vendors, “because we were left in the dark for so long.”
Illinois state Rep. Edgar Gonzalez, whose 23rd District includes Little Village, also attended the meeting. He said the mall is where his dad started working as an immigrant to the U.S.
Gonzalez said he lives a block away from the Discount Mall and was sad to see so many vendors leave, but excited about what development would bring to Gage Park.
“I wish they could have stayed here in Little Village. But they’ll continue to serve families all across the Southwest Side of Chicago.”
Many vendors were uncomfortable taking a “handout,” but said it would help protect them from accepting a bad deal elsewhere just so they could reopen.
“We’re asking for help so that nobody can take advantage of us,” said Khodr Kaddoura, who has run a clothing store at the mall for about 30 years.
Armando Porras, longtime owner of a soccer apparel shop at the mall, has been hawking his wares on the street and on Facebook since being forced to leave.
He hopes they can get the word out for loyal customers to make the trek down to Gage Park.
“It won’t be easy,” he said.
Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.
