WEST LAWN — City Council members approved a local developers’ plans Wednesday to replace the deteriorating Ford City Mall with a warehouse and distribution facility following months of pushback from Southwest Side community groups.

Midwest RE Acquisitions LLC, an affiliate of Chicago-based real estate company Kurv Industrial, will demolish the closed mall at 7601 S. Cicero Ave. and construct four, 45-feet-tall industrial buildings, according to a presentation submitted by the development team to the Chicago Plan Commission last month.

The industrial campus will have over 900 car parking spaces, 160 truck parking spaces and 216 loading spaces, according to the project summary. The $200 million development is expected to create about 185 permanent jobs and 90 construction jobs.

The four warehouses are being built “speculatively,” meaning future tenants have not yet been identified, a company representative told the city’s zoning committee Tuesday.

The construction of the project — including demolishing the mall, preparing the site and building the four industrial buildings — is expected to begin in early 2027 and conclude in late 2028, Liz Butler, an attorney representing the developer, said at a Sept. 15 community meeting.

Kurv Industrial announced plans in July 2025 to demolish Ford City Mall and build a “modern, master-planned industrial campus.” At the time, the 60-year-old mall was experiencing significant vacancies and building issues, which would ultimately cause its court-mandated closure in June.

More than 1,200 people have signed a petition seeking to stop the development of the industrial campus, which neighbors fear will bring pollution, traffic and safety issues to nearby communities.

At a September community meeting last year, Ald. Derrick Curtis (18th), whose ward includes Ford City Mall, warned neighbors that they could be in “big trouble” if Kurv Industrial decided not to proceed with the industrial campus because no other developer had approached him with plans to redevelop the space.

Namdar Realty Group, a private real estate firm based in New York, purchased Ford City Mall in 2019 in a $16.6 million deal and had become “slumlords,” Curtis said at the time.

Many Southwest Side neighbors continued to protest the industrial site plan as the plan moved through the city’s various departments.

Members of the West Lawn Conservation Club and the Southside Flourish Movement said they want city officials to consider the environmental impact on the neighborhood, and called for a more robust community engagement process.

“Residents are not asking this committee to abandon the property. We’re asking you to not make an irreversible decision before the city understands its … consequences,” Glenford Flowers, a representative of Southside Flourish Movement, said during the public comment period of Tuesday’s zoning committee hearing.

Ford City Mall could instead become affordable housing for vulnerable communities or a downsized outdoor mall, Adolfo Castrejon, president and founder of the West Lawn Conservation Club, previously said.

To transform the Southwest Side site from a retail destination to an industrial campus “would be a huge downgrade and detriment to our livelihoods,” Castrejon said.

Despite pushback, Curtis remained steadfast in his support of the $200 million project.

An industrial campus will be safer than having a vacant, dilapidated mall in the community, bring tax revenue to the city and put a deteriorating property back in productive use, Curtis and other backers have previously said.

“Many of us remember what the property once was,” Curtis, who has lived in the community for 30 years, said this summer. “We also know what it can become and we cannot allow it to remain the way it is.”

Following “substantial input” from community members, property owners, public officials and city departments, Kurv Industrial added “enhancements” to the proposed development, attorney Liz Butler previously said.

Those “enhancements” include the construction of a new CTA bus terminal, the planting of over 913 trees and 800 acres of landscaping, stormwater management and infrastructure improvements — including the reconstruction of 76th Street as a public right-of-way, according to a presentation submitted by developers.

The project also includes the creation of the Ford City Heritage Plaza — a public gathering space that recognizes the site’s “remarkable” history, Curt Pascoe, Kurv Industrial’s executive vice president of development, previously said.

Prior to opening as Ford City Mall in 1965, the Southwest Side site was a World War II aircraft manufacturing facility owned by Dodge Chicago. After the war ended, Ford Motor Company used the site as an automobile factory, which is how the mall received its name.

“This property has a remarkable history that extends back more than 80 years,” Pascoe said. “We wanted to create a space within the development that recognizes that history and preserves a connection to the site’s past.”

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