The Brickyard
Cost: $110 million

The Brickyard Mall had lost several anchors, and the 49-acre enclosed shopping emporium on Chicago's Northwest Side had started to show signs of age.

Key urban retailing design ideas influenced the redevelopment and were aimed at ensuring the mall's feasibility after reopening as The Brickyard.

Some of the 11 new structures will be located near Narragansett and Diversey streets, rather than in the back.

Parking will be interspersed throughout, rather than only near the streets. A Jewel-Osco was replaced, and gone will be the deck parking atop the Jewel.

Storefront windows and doors will be on multiple facades, rather than just one. Masonry and cast stone will dress the new buildings for a solid look that reflects the neighborhood.

Large-format structures were used for the anchor stores in the open-air format. These include a 143,700-sq.-ft. Lowe's home-center store, 143,100-sq.-ft. Target discount store, replacement 64,565-sq.-ft. Jewel-Osco and 30,000-sq.-ft. Marshalls home fashions outlet.

Fifty-five stores opened, and there are also restaurants and 2,300 parking spaces.

The total mall area of about 600,000 sq. ft. represents a decrease of approximately 280,000 sq. ft. from the previous shopping center, and the shrinkage is mostly attributable to the elimination of the deck parking.

The mall has retained its two tiers, with units on both the upper and lower levels, and a retaining wall between. Roads connect the levels, which differ in elevation by about 30 ft.

The multiple heights are explained by a landfill that had once occupied the site.

The landfill had plugged a pit from still earlier that had produced clay for bricks.

Dealing with Site

The utility lines that had fed the previous buildings were dated and were removed or crushed to make way for the new lines.

No dirt could be removed from the site during excavation principally because of the landfill. Taking away the soil and having it go through remediation would have been expensive.

Moved dirt was put in piles and sorted, and large debris, such as concrete chunks, could be removed. About 500,000 cu. yds. of earth was moved.

Deep foundations, like caissons, might have resulted in too many spoils leaving the site, and infill material that had been placed on the site previous to the construction of the original mall might have lacked the firmness to handle typical buildings.

Dynamic compaction was the solution. A crane was brought in to drop steel weights to pack the soil.

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