Sears remains an issue
But UP Mall is 90% full with latest additions
Work already is underway converting the former Bar Louie space outside the University Park Mall into a KPot Korean BBQ and Hot Pot restaurant that the chain reportedly hopes to open in the first quarter of next year.
“It’s been awhile, so we’re definitely excited,” says Christian Carlson, the mall’s director of marketing and business development. The space has been sitting vacant for three years, since Bar Louie relocated to a new space at 7320 Gumwood Road in the Grandview development north of the mall in August 2020.
The rapidly-expanding restaurant chain describes itself as a “unique, hands-on all-you-can-eat dining experience that merges traditional Asian hot pot with Korean BBQ flavors — but modernized with a full bar.”
Concentrated mostly in the eastern third of the country, the UP Mall location will likely be KPot’s first in Indiana, though another is planned for the Southlake Mall in Merrillville, according to the restaurant’s website.
While the KPot project is underway, officials also are pursuing tenants for the restaurant space that was occupied by Granite City Food & Brewery before it abruptly closed in October 2019 along with some other locations in Illinois and Indiana.
Both Bar Louie and Granite City were among the first tenants in the 110,000-square-foot lifestyle center — known as The Village — that the mall opened in 2008. Carlson says he hopes to have that space filled by a new restaurant in 2024.
Of course, the timing of losing both restaurants couldn’t have come at a worse time for the mall as most operators were fighting to survive during the shutdown and then the restrictions put in place as a result of the pandemic. Estimates place the number of pandemic-related closures at somewhere between 70,000 and 90,000 nationwide.
But now business and other retailers are again looking for growth opportunities, and UP aims to pick up its share of new restaurants and retailers that are looking for space.
The Pepper Palace, which previously was located in The Village, relocated in July to store space just north of the Macy’s. It features hundreds of hot sauces, dry rubs, salsas, pickled vegetables, ketchups and mustards, most of which can be tasted before purchase.
Shuffle and Waffle, which opened
at the start of summer, is located at Center Court and offers ice cream, milkshakes, crepes, waffles and drinks. It’s operated by the same local entrepreneur — Khalid Khalaf — who’s successfully run the Next Level clothing store in the mall the past few years.
During a tour of the mall, Carlson points out the new Urbn Sox store near Center Court, which carries over 12,000 pairs of colorful, fun and unique socks, space nearby where a Go! Calendars & Games is tentatively planning to open Sept. 1 and a storefront closer to JCPenney near Blondie’s Cookies where Michiana Lash Extension plans to open in September.
Meanwhile a Bubblelicious Milk Tea and Fruit Tea will make its first move into Indiana by opening in the UP food court in September and at the Greenwood Park Mall south of Indianapolis, also this year.
Except for the large space at the southwest end of the mall that Sears occupied until October 2019, the regional shopping destination is 90% full and one of the most successful in the state because of its combination of retailers.
The problem with the Sears space is that mall owner Simon Property Group doesn’t own the building or the land it’s sitting on, Carlson says. “We have to kind of wait for them,” he says. “All we can do is encourage.”
Picklemall, which aims to bring pickleball to empty retail space, has said it plans to open 50 locations in the next two years. Dillard’s, an upscale department store, also has been doing some expanding, and Dave & Busters has taken over some of the empty spots.
“Obviously, we’d like to see it filled,” Carlson says. “But it’s going to have to take someone approaching Sears to make it happen.”