The Eastland Mall’s days could soon be numbered.
While there is no official redevelopment agreement in place, and the deal to purchase the property has not closed, Bloomington city staff are planning for the buyer to demolish most of the existing structure.
After years of stagnation, the deal and development process is moving quickly.
“This mall property… is probably the one we get the most interest in and the most complaints about,” Deputy City Manager Billy Tyus said at an Oct. 26 council meeting where the city approved a few measures aimed at moving the project along.
“All of these things are happening relatively fast,” he said.
The 53-acre site went up for sale in the summer. It was unclear how much CBL Properties wanted for the site, but East Peoria-based Cullinan Properties is offering $11.3 million.
According to City Manager Jeff Jurgens, Cullinan Properties entered a purchase agreement with CBL in September.
Typically, buying process for such a large plot would require several months.
City staff admitted at the meeting that the deal is moving with “unorthodox” speed. In a Thursday morning interview for WGLT’s Sound Ideas, Jurgens said the current owner, CBL, wants the mall of its books by the end of the year.
“There’s no time for real due diligence, there’s no time for appraisal, so this is all happening very quickly,” he said.
“The seller’s the one dictating this,” he said later. “They’re wanting to potentially have this off the books before the end of the year, might be a small change where it switches to January.”
The sale could close between November and January. Tyus said demolition could begin by fall 2027.
“The bulk of the site is planning to come down,” Tyus said to council.
A mall, but outside
Cullinan Properties has developed several open-air retail spaces in Central Illinois, including the nearby Shoppes at College Hills in Normal.
There are no official plans for the site yet, but signs point to that being the plan in Bloomington.
“Here’s the thing: There aren’t a lot of people building malls anymore,” Tyus said Oct. 26. “Most are building the open-air sites.”
According to the city, Kohl’s will continue to occupy one of the anchor stores on the Eastland Mall property.
Jurgens said that’s because it is off to the side. Once the rest of the structure comes down, he said that will leave a “large area to play with” for a new design.
Kohl’s is far from the only business in the mall. Ulta and Planet Fitness also draw in customers. Jurgens said they and other businesses could find a new home in the new development.
“So it might be that you get some out lots developed and maybe Ulta moves into one of those,” he said. “There are a lot of great businesses in the current Eastland Mall. We want to keep as many of those as we can and accommodate those, but it's just going to look a little different.”
Those decisions will ultimately be up to the developer.
Jurgens said he doesn’t picture housing in that area and thinks it will be mostly retail and office space.
When asked if another open-air retail center near the Shoppes at College Hills could oversaturate the market, Jurgens was confident shoppers would visit both locations.
“That is how people are shopping today, that is how businesses are getting developed, and we're confident that this is going to attract new types of retail to the community and it's just going to be more options,” he said.
Offering incentives
The city is putting 80% collateral on Cullinan Properties' loan, which will expire after a year. The city also approved a resolution declaring its intent to reimburse Cullinan Properties for “property acquisition costs,” among other expenses associated with development through a tax increment financing [TIF] district.
Jurgens said the city is confident Cullinan can secure the funding and will not default on the loan, and that using TIF dollars to reimburse expenses like that is not unusual.
He anticipates the whole project will be very costly for the developer.
“It's going to be very expensive to redevelop this property, to get a substantial portion of the mall property eventually demo-ed and down, to start building new buildings,” he said.
The mall does not currently sit in a TIF district, but council enacted the process to establish one in that area.
A TIF district sets aside a portion of the tax revenue generated within its boundaries and uses that money to reimburse the developer for certain costs. Developers can also receive some property tax abatement through the TIF district.
The goal is to incentivize developers with the reimbursements. When asked why the city didn’t enact a TIF to incentivize CBL to develop the mall, he said the company never expressed interest in one.
“If CBL would have held on to the property and wanted to redevelop that, they would have asked for it and we would have considered it, but they decided to go the option of actually selling the property,” he said.
The outlined district does not include a bank branch currently under construction. Jurgens said the property was not included because they do not believe that developer needs TIF funds to complete the project.
There are procedural steps the city must take to establish the TIF district, and it must be approved by council.
Any benefits the developer would receive from the district would be laid out in a redevelopment agreement, which must also go through approval procedures including a council vote.
The city intends to vote on establishing the TIF district between January and April 2027.
Under the collateral agreement, Cullinan must present a redevelopment plan to the city within six months of closing the sale. Since the sale could close between now and January, that means a redevelopment agreement could arrive between May and July 2027.
