Northbrook's Fall Calendar Is Packed. The Mall Still Isn't.

If you've driven past Northbrook Court lately and wondered where everyone went, you're not imagining anything. As of last year only about two dozen stores and restaurants remained open inside the mall, and the list has kept shrinking since. Meanwhile, across town, Village Green Park is booking out its calendar through the end of October.

That's not a coincidence, and it's not really about retail at all. It's about who's actually doing the work of filling a calendar in this village, and for years now, it hasn't been the company that owns the mall.

What's Actually on the Calendar This Fall

Here's what's confirmed between now and the end of October:

Six Wednesdays remain on the Farmers Market's run this season. Brewfest returns for its sixth year with live music and a lineup of craft breweries, plus food service from Landmark Inn Bar & Grille. The Chamber's Auction & Taste, now in its 31st year, moved to a Thursday evening this fall at the Renaissance hotel on Skokie Boulevard, with Bell Flavors & Fragrances, the Northbrook-based flavor and fragrance company, back as presenting sponsor.

Look at the middle column of that table again. Not one of these events happens at, or is run by, Northbrook Court. The Park District, the Village, and the Chamber of Commerce are doing the programming. The mall's owner is doing something else entirely, and it's taking a lot longer.

Seven Years After Macy's, Still No Groundbreaking

Macy's closed its Northbrook Court doors in 2019. The building came down not long after. Brookfield Properties unveiled a conceptual master plan for the site in April 2023, and the Village Board followed with a Redevelopment and Economic Incentive Agreement that October, along with a new business district designation to help fund the overhaul.

Then 2025 happened. Apple closed its store that April after two decades at the mall. Lululemon, Forever 21, Sephora, Auntie Anne's, and Louis Vuitton all followed. The Lego Store, one of the mall's last reliable family draws, packed up and moved to Old Orchard that December.

The Village's own Northbrook Court Redevelopment page, last updated in December 2025, describes the situation in the driest possible terms: the Village and the property owner "continue to have regular discussions" about the future of the site. That's municipal shorthand for no construction start date. Brookfield has since shifted its approach to lead with residential construction, apartments, row houses, and townhomes, ahead of any retail rebuild. That pivot comes with strings attached. When trustees approved the amended agreement, Village President Kathryn Ciesla explained the safeguard this way: "The agreement protects taxpayers by requiring 50% of retail to be leased before incentives are accessed." Until half the retail space at Northbrook Court has tenants, the tax increment financing and sales tax rebates Brookfield is counting on stay locked.

That's the real story behind the empty parking spaces. It's not a village losing interest in shopping. It's a hundred-acre property waiting on a leasing threshold that hasn't been met.

The Store Everyone Still Shops At

While Northbrook Court works through that, the retail centers on the other side of the village never stopped moving. Village Green Shopping Center, the low-slung building directly across Shermer Road from the park, has been under the same ownership for 34 years and logs more than 133,000 visits a year. Within a one-mile radius, average incomes top $230,000, which helps explain why a shopping center built decades ago still has essentially no vacancy problem to speak of.

A few minutes away, Village Square carries Trader Joe's, Nordstrom Rack, Saks Off Fifth, the Container Store, and Marshall's. Willow Festival, on the other side of town, has the area's only REI outdoor store alongside one of the largest Whole Foods locations around. And in the Village Center, Sunset Foods remains the grocery store locals mention by name, not by category, the kind of place that shows up as a sponsor on Chamber event pages because it's simply always there.

None of these centers are chasing a $750 million master plan. They didn't need one. They kept their anchor tenants, kept their parking lots full, and kept showing up as sponsors and vendors at the same civic events that fill the fall calendar. Last year's Auction & Taste roster included Sunset Foods, Napolita Pizzeria & Wine Bar on Shermer Road, North Shore Bistro on Skokie Boulevard, and Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar, which opened at the former Granite City site on Willow Road. Those are the businesses residents already recognize, and they're the ones still investing in this village's calendar while a much larger property a few miles north sits in redevelopment limbo.

Where the Fall Money Actually Goes

There's a reason so much of Northbrook's calendar runs through volunteers and civic groups rather than a single commercial landlord. Northbrook Days, the village's summer festival at Village Green Park, is organized entirely by volunteers through the Northbrook Civic Foundation. It's the foundation's only fundraiser of the year, and since 1950 it has put nearly $4 million back into the community, funding scholarships and grants to groups like the Northbrook Park District, the Public Library, and the North Suburban YMCA.

The Auction & Taste works the same way for the Chamber of Commerce, funding its programs for local businesses one ticket and one restaurant booth at a time. Brewfest is a joint production of the Park District and the Village itself, no outside developer required.

This is worth sitting with for a second. The events that make Northbrook feel like a place with a full calendar aren't funded by whoever owns the biggest commercial property in town. They're funded by the same civic organizations that have been running them for decades, largely independent of what happens at any single retail site. That's a structural fact about how this village works, not just a seasonal one.

What This Means If You Already Live Here

None of this changes where you'll do your grocery shopping or grab a Saturday morning coffee. Sunset Foods, Village Square, and Willow Festival aren't going anywhere, and the fall calendar above is real and worth putting on your own. What it does change is how you might read the empty storefronts the next time you drive past Northbrook Court. That's not decline. It's a leasing benchmark that hasn't been hit yet, sitting inside a village whose actual center of gravity, measured by foot traffic, sponsorships, and who's willing to organize an event, has been somewhere else for a while now.

If you're weighing what a home near this part of the North Shore is actually worth, given how the retail landscape here has shifted over the past few years, I'd be glad to walk through it with you. You can reach Cornelia Matache for a complimentary home valuation and a straightforward conversation about what's happening in this market, no pressure, just the facts as they stand today.