CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — About half of the more than 100 vendors at Little Village’s Discount Mall will need to vacate the building in late March, unless a different arrangement can be reached.
“Discount Mall is, in Little Village, a family,” said longtime clothing vendor Khodr Kaddoura. “Everybody knows the Little Village Discount Mall. It’s been going for 30 years, maybe plus a couple years more. The idea is: We’re fighting to stay. We don’t want to leave.”
That family, though, would soon be divided, Kaddoura said, if nothing is done before March 26. That's the deadline given by leaseholder PK Mall. On that date vendors on the south side of the building would have to vacate. In a letter to the vendors, PK Mall wrote that the terms of a proposed lease renewal were unreasonable.
“We feel horrible,” Kaddoura said. “We’ve been here for so many years, and now to come and divide us and kick us out — it’s not fair.”
Representing the vendors is Kocoy Malagon, who operates a custom dress shop out of the south end of the mall. Malagon said there are alternatives to kicking out the mall’s south side vendors.
“We are a group, OK? And we [said] that half of the mall is not enough room for everybody,” Malagon said. “We are open to share, we [could] make the stores smaller to try and work everybody together.”
Meanwhile, the leaseholder on the north side of the Discount Mall building, Pilsen Plaza Corporation (PPC), has signed a new, 10-year lease with the building owner. The PPC’s deal includes a plan to move the north section vendors into the larger south end in May, according to the current plan.
“What I’m saying [is] the opinion of everybody in this mall — the same,” Kaddoura said. “Everybody wants to stay. We don’t want to leave.”
Many of the south section Discount Mall vendors are in disbelief, if not optimistic, and they said they’re looking forward to a meeting with PPC next week. They hope there can be a plan to keep all of the vendors and businesses.
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