Despite its prominent location at a heavily trafficked intersection just south of the Borman Expressway in a town that is otherwise thriving, the Griffith Park Plaza shopping center has been declining for years.
The Big Kmart that long anchored the outdoor shopping center at Cline Avenue and Ridge Road shuttered in 2018. Many of the storefronts have long sat empty â the Griffith Park Cinema I-II screened their last films in 1998 and have stayed dark since. Most of the mall s facades haven t been renovated for years, and it shows.
The parking lot is riddled with potholes. It s such an underutilized sea of asphalt it had previously been used as a pickup and drop-off spot for a bus to Chicago s airports.