This mall in downtown Peoria is up for auction; its owner is selling after 24 years

Peoria's Twin Towers Mall is listed for auction, owner Jeff Graves told the Journal Star on Monday.

Graves has owned the mall, located across from City Hall on Fulton Street in downtown Peoria, since 1997. He cited his age and recent move to Texas as the reasons for selling. 

The auction will close on Wednesday. The bidding began at $100,000 for the 39,588-square-foot facility.

"I am going to miss Peoria," Graves said. "But it was time for me to move on."

Graves said he views the mall, which encompasses only the first floor of the building, as a "prime redevelopment opportunity." He thinks it will play well to the potential downtown Peoria has for revitalization post-COVID. 

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"We've had success lately getting more tenants into the mall, but the real future for that place is probably bringing in some larger, national tenants," Graves said. "The rents I am getting there now are not what I used to get years ago."

Graves hopes a potential buyer will be able to modernize and remodel the inside of the mall. 

History of the Twin Towers Mall

Both the Twin Towers Mall, the office space above it and the neighboring 28-story, two-building condominium complex were built by Peoria developer G. Raymond Becker in the early 1980s.

The first tenant in the building, attorney G. Douglas Stephens, occupied one of the office suites above the mall in September 1983. Today, multiple law offices still occupy office space in that separately owned part of the building — including Stephens' firm, Stephens Fiddes McGill and Associates.

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The mall was primarily intended for the convenience of residents in the condos and for office workers in the floors above the mall, according to Journal Star archives. It also draws traffic from office buildings nearby, including another of the buildings Becker constructed next door at 401 Main St. that houses, among other tenants, multiple state of Illinois offices.

The city of Peoria owns the parking deck below the mall under an agreement that dates back to the construction of the block.