<p>Joey Thurman: I'm at the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora, Illinois, where they're changing how you think of a mall. It's not even called a mall anymore. You can walk around, multi-use spaces, local vendors, and you can even stop at Furry Babies and get a puppy. This is a mini schnauzer. Schnauzer, hello. Say hello to the camera.</p> <p>            I haven't been in a mall since I was a teenager running around, having security chase me, maybe that happened. I'm here with Scott Samson, Senior General Manager of the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora. Scott, thanks for being here.</p> <p>Scott Samson: Thanks. I knew I recognized you.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Now... Yeah, you didn't chase me down now. Now, I said mall, but we're not using the term mall anymore, right?</p> <p>Scott Samson: No, in the future we're reinventing ourselves, so malls are becoming more experiential and trying to become more 24/7 communities and we're reinventing ourselves not to be a traditional mall like you might find in 1990 or 1980. But it's no longer Fox Valley Mall, it's Fox Valley.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Fox Valley. I like that. And where are we right now? I have this massive tree type structure. And normally in your typical, I'm not.. I'll say mall, right? You don't have these big, open, green spaces where you can actually get on a structure like this. Where are we now?</p> <p>Scott Samson: No. No. Fox Valley has been around since 1975 and this is the site of a massive just... It was an open center court where events might be done or kiosks might open. And what we did is reinvested and reinvented and created a indoor park here, so rather than being called center court now it's center park. We worked with a world-class architecture firm and they designed this iconic tree house tower with a spiral staircase, a platform on the top, and on a regular basis we have live music and events in the stage. But in an environment like this and in geography like this, it's always warm and sunny inside a mall, right? And having an indoor park is a great competitive advantage. And once again, offering experiences, and amenities, and programming that, it could be cornhole. We have very popular line dancing activities here. We even held the local high school prom here.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Really?</p> <p>Scott Samson: About a month and a half ago. The king and queen were crowned up here. And now that we're evolving out of COVID, I think it's just going to be exponential in terms of the things that we can do here. But it's really become the new heart of Fox Valley.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Now you're bringing all sorts of different things. Because we were talking earlier that normally you had anchors and big box businesses, a Sears, a Macy's, anything like that, but you guys are really shifting here where you don't need that anymore and you're even developing a big apartment complex.</p> <p>Scott Samson: That's right. That's right. Shopping centers today, particularly large 40, 50 year old former malls like Fox Valley need to reinvent themselves. And we're fortunate to live in a great community, a great market, and the real estate still has a lot of value. And so to reinvent ourselves we're looking at adding more experiential uses, finding a way to transform these vacant anchors, or transform entire areas of the mall to be more experiential, to be more up-to-date, and create almost a 24/7 living experience.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Right.</p> <p>Scott Samson: So our former Sears, which was the front door of the mall, now during the past year we've demolished that, we're building 304 luxury apartments in phase one and I think we're eager to get started on phase two. With the large parking field that the mall has, we're also looking at a lot of different concepts and we have a lot of interest in movie theaters, restaurants, even active senior living.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Really?</p> <p>Scott Samson: Perhaps we'll repurpose another vacant department store into health club. We're looking at grocery stores, just creating a way to live, work, play throughout the day here.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: So, you guys are really reinventing.</p> <p>Scott Samson: That's right.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: First of all, you're getting rid of mall as the definition. And it's an experience where, especially in suburban areas, you don't get this where maybe in the city in Chicago, where you have the big apartment complex and you have bowling lanes and everything else, and now you can live, work, play, go take a nap at your apartment, come down and go to the food court, maybe get a drink here. It's really great. And what does that mean for you to be involved and help with the community of Aurora?</p> <p>Scott Samson: No, it's very exciting because the key to this reinvention, in order not to have a cookie cutter experience, it'd be the same as any other former mall, is tied directly to the richness of the community that we serve. And with almost 150 spaces for stores here, a substantial number are going to be dedicated to local entrepreneurs and local uses and more and more non-traditional uses. We're finding that our younger shopper, in fact, don't really care about the national brands, but they really embrace the local things. It could be the tea, the bubble tea concept that we opened, or the cafe that only serves varieties of peanut butter and jelly that we brought in.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Bringing it back to my child... A crunchy peanut butter or smooth, what do you like?</p> <p>Scott Samson: Yes. I'm a crunchy.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: You're a crunchy guy? I knew I liked you. Okay.</p> <p>Scott Samson: Okay. Okay. And so we have, as I said, a very diverse and enriched market and a lot of, particularly since COVID, a lot of interest in folks who want to become entrepreneurs, who have good ideas, we partner with them, we add resources and expertise in order to open up the store so it looks like a permanent chain store, where our shopper wouldn't know that it's really just a one-off that's local. Very proud of that program. That makes this shopping experience different than you'd probably find at a lot of our competitors.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: So you're talking about the community and bring in these local businesses, but they also have a sense of being in this big footprint where it's just like the national brands as well, right?</p> <p>Scott Samson: That's right. Although there are a lot of popular national brands that we all grew up with that are no longer in business, there's still a strong foundation of popular national brand retailers, the Victoria's Secret, the Gaps, and all the others, there's American Eagle and all of those that will still remain. We'll continue to keep that strong foundation of national brands while we enhance the experience with a really creative variety of local entrepreneurs, and local food and beverage, local experiential merchants, and retailers of all varieties.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: That's amazing. Well Scott, I appreciate your time.</p> <p>Scott Samson: Sure thing.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: I think I'm going to go get a drink. Is that all right?</p> <p>Scott Samson: Bubble tea?</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Bubble tea or what do we got over here?</p> <p>Scott Samson: Tapville.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: We got Tapville.</p> <p>Scott Samson: Tapville.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Beer, mimosas. Yeah, I think I'm going to skip the tea.</p> <p>Scott Samson: Enjoy.</p> <p>Joey Thurman: Appreciate it. Thank you so much.</p> <p>Scott Samson: Thanks.</p>