(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Dozens of vendors at the Discount Mall in Little Village have been given final notice that they will need to vacate the building by Tuesday.
On Monday, they were scrambling to tear down, pack, rent moving trucks and locate storage for their merchandise.
Their lease extension had expired Sunday. Vendor Kocoy Malagon told WBBM Newsradio there had been hopes that an intervention by the city would stall the move until a new location at 27th and Pulaski could be secured.
There will now be a lapse between vacating the Discount Mall and the availability of a new location.
"We [were] waiting for ... the negotiations between the city and Nova Construction," Malagon said. "We wanted to hear: 'Oh ... we're going to have, maybe, five or six weeks more, [and] when the other place is ready, then we'll move.'"
Another vendor, Jesus Bustamante, who was moving his business Anthony's Boots into storage, said the whole ordeal is beginning to take a toll on him.
"We have to take everything down, everything we've built in the stores that we have," Bustamante said. "Not just me, but the other vendors. We have to rent stuff to go move stuff and buy storage to put our merchandise in there."
Once the vendors on the south end of the Discount Mall are moved out, the remaining vendors on the north end of the mall will take their place while renovations are done on the north end of the building.
The vendors on the north end operate under a separate leaseholder who recently signed a new 10-year lease with the building owner.
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