Some Little Village Discount Mall vendors must leave after judge refuses to stop eviction

A group of vendors fighting to remain in the Discount Mall in Little Village have been told to move out by Tuesday.

Their fate was all but sealed after a judge on Friday refused to block changes to the mall planned by the property’s owner.

By Tuesday, however, local Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th), still hopes to find a new location for those vendors to move to. If successful, Sigcho-Lopez said Friday, he hopes the city also can get the mall’s owner, John Novak of Novak Construction, to agree to a 10-week suspension to give those vendors more time to relocate.

The group of 40 vendors from the Lower West Side shopping center sued Novak and asked a judge to decide whether those vendors are tenants or licensees, who could be summarily closed. They also asked for an injunction that would allow them to stay.

The judge on Friday denied the group’s motion for an injunction, meaning the group will have to leave as ordered by Novak.

That ruling also does not protect those vendors from the management company responsible for the group, PK Mall Inc. In a letter earlier in the month, the longtime management company told vendors if they didn’t vacate, management might confiscate their merchandise.

“We’re feeling sad because the mall has always been more than just a business,” said Kocoy Malagón, the owner of a dress shop at the mall.

“But we’re also feeling OK because the city has promised to find us a new location where we can maintain our businesses.”

Malagón has worked at the mall for about a decade and since the fight with Novak began, she has become a spokesperson for the vendors under PK’s management. The company represents about half of the vendors at the mall; the other half, under different management, signed a new lease with Novak.

Malagón said city officials showed the vendors a former CVS store on West 26th Street where they hope to set up shop soon, and she hopes the city will be able to persuade Novak to give them enough time to move there.

A spokesman for the city’s Department of Planning and Urban Development confirmed they were working with the vendors and the alderman to find a solution.

Sigcho-Lopez believes keeping the businesses operating could help prevent long-term negative outcomes for the Lower West Side community.

At a news conference Friday evening, the alderman announced the new shutdown date as well as the continued efforts for that 10-week extension, in order to “guarantee a fair and dignified relocation,” he said.

The iconic mall opened at 26th Street and Albany Avenue in 1991 and has become a staple of Chicago’s Latino community, drawing visitors from outside Illinois. Novak acquired the property in 2019 and told the Sun-Times then that the mall might not be “the best use of the property” and that he intended to bring “more recognized national tenants” like Target or grocery stores that cater to Latinos.

Ramsin Canon, the group’s attorney, said several vendors he represented had been there since the mall opened.

“We feel the terms of the agreement and conduct on the part of the vendors was that of tenants, and they should have been treated as holding leases,” he said. “The court obviously disagreed and we have to accept the decision of the judge.”

Iraís Miranda, the owner of a musical instrument shop, said the judge’s decision floored him and his family, who work with him at the shop. “My kids are in shock,” he said. “They’re just getting started with the business and they grew up in here.”

He planned to tour another potential alternative space for the vendors in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on Friday night. In the meantime, he planned to move his merchandise into storage and convince his kids that things will work out.

“If anything, they’re more worried than I am,” Miranda said, “but I’m telling them we have to be positive.”

Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.