JCPenney has purchased a 10.7-acre site and is constructing a new store. The sales price was not disclosed. The mall is owned by Realty America Group, based in Dallas, and is managed by Jones Lang LaSalle Retail. Steve Swanson and Adam Cody, both of Staubach, represented JCPenney in the transaction. Senior vice president Leonard Richards represented Jones Lang LaSalle Retail.

The mall is currently nearly 75% leased, Richards says. The anchors will be Carson Pirie Scott, JCPenney, Sears and Target. Other major tenants include Old Navy, Express and Foot Locker. Richards would not disclose asking lease rates for the mall or power center. The 989,000-sf mall opened in 1973 as a joint venture of the four anchors: JCPenney, Wieboldt's, Montgomery Wards and Carson Pirie Scott, says Leonard Richards, senior vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle Retail. The mall lost some of its shoppers as Orland Square Mall, in Orland Park, and River Oaks Center, in Calumet City, opened.

The two shopping centers "cut off the market to the northeast and northwest for all intents and purposes," Richards says. Wieboldt's closed and was vacant for a few years before Sears opened in 1992 and, about six years later, Montgomery Wards closed as well. "In 2000, JCPenney left the mall even though they owned their own site," he says. Lincoln Mall "languished," in part, because of investors who purchased the mall in the late 1990's that did not have sufficient capital, Richards says. Realty America purchased the center in 2003 from Finova, which was the lender for the former owners, Richards says.