Drive down River Oaks Drive past the old mall and you can see the split with your own eyes. One side is the fenced-off, city-owned former Sears site. The building, empty since 2013, is slated for demolition. The other side still has cars in the lot, because Macy's and JCPenney are still open for business inside a mall that Calumet City does not own. A half-mile down the same road, a separate legal fight involving a different property and owner has landed in Cook County court.
Both fights are about River Oaks. Neither one is waiting on the other to resolve.
The Mall Fight Is Really an Argument About What "Worth" Means
Calumet City has sought to acquire River Oaks Center since Namdar Realty Group bought the 1.4-million-square-foot mall in 2017; the city says Namdar did little with it. For a while the two sides were actually negotiating. Before mid-2024, the price under discussion sat somewhere between $4 million and $7 million, a figure the city considered close to fair market value for a mall that had already lost Carson's and Sears as anchors more than a decade earlier.
Then the number moved. By the time Calumet City's City Council voted in October 2024 to pursue quick-take eminent domain, Namdar was reportedly asking $10 million. The city made a final offer of $13.2 million. Namdar countered with its own valuation of $40 million.
| When | Whose number | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Before mid-2024 | Informal negotiation | $4 million to $7 million |
| Fall 2024 | Namdar's asking price | $10 million |
| October 2024 | City's quick-take offer | $13.2 million |
| After eminent domain filed | Namdar's counter-valuation | $40 million |
Read across the table and Namdar's stated figure rose fourfold during the period when the city pursued quick-take eminent domain. Mayor Thaddeus Jones has been blunt about how he reads that shift.
"They're not investing in the mall," Jones said in an AOL report, arguing that holding onto a declining property without putting money into it wasn't fair to the community or to the school districts that depend on its tax base.
Namdar then sued. In April 2025, the company filed suit against Calumet City, alleging the city's eminent domain notice to tenants was used to scare businesses out and depress the mall's value ahead of a court-ordered price. A judge later dismissed that lawsuit. But the underlying disagreement over price never went away. An AOL report said that in May 2026 the city changed its approach: it voluntarily dropped its own Cook County case asking a judge to set the compensation figure, and instead asked the Illinois General Assembly for approval to use expanded quick-take authority. City attorneys have also pointed to gaps between land parcels the city previously appraised at $4.6 million and figures showing up in newer court filings, adding another layer to a valuation fight that still has no settled number nearly two years after the city's quick-take vote.
What the City Actually Owns Right Now
It helps to separate what Calumet City controls from what it's still fighting for. The city already owns the 27-acre site where Sears once stood and put that parcel out for demolition bids in August 2024. That's the land behind the fence you can see from the road today.
Everything else, including the operating JCPenney and Macy's stores and the enclosed common areas connecting them, still belongs to Namdar. The city's long-term vision for the site has shifted more than once. A casino anchor was proposed for the mall in 2019 but rejected by the Illinois Gaming Board in October 2021 in favor of competing proposals in Homewood and Matteson. Since then, the pitch has moved toward a mixed-use entertainment district built around housing, restaurants, and event space, with cost estimates that have ranged from $110 million for an earlier architectural concept up to $750 million for the full build-out the city described in court filings. Jones has said two developers remain interested, but nothing moves forward until the ownership question is settled.
A Second Fight Just Surfaced, and It Has Nothing to Do With Namdar
Cross the street from River Oaks Center and you're standing in front of Calumet Center, a more than 159,000-square-foot shopping center at 410 to 500 River Oaks West Road. This property has no connection to Namdar or to the city's eminent domain case. It's owned through an entity called WC MRP Calumet Center LLC, tied to Texas developer Nate Paul's World Class Holdings.
Paul's company bought the property in 2014 for $7.7 million and rolled it into a $38.3 million loan covering a wider Midwest retail portfolio, originated in 2015 and later sold off to investors as part of a commercial mortgage-backed securities pool. That loan went into default once before, in 2022, and Paul's borrowing entity got the case dismissed after coming back into compliance through a reinstatement agreement with special servicer Rialto Capital, which required quarterly payments of $500,000 starting in September 2025. Paul made the first payment, then missed the December installment and every payment due in 2026 after that. In August 2026, Rialto filed a new foreclosure complaint against the property seeking $45.6 million.
Paul was sentenced in April 2025 to four months of home confinement, five years of supervised release, and a $1 million fine after pleading guilty to making false statements to financial institutions, following federal fraud charges tied to $172 million in loans. He also served 10 days in jail for civil contempt in late 2024 and narrowly avoided a second jail term in early 2026 over an unpaid $11.5 million civil judgment.
Two Properties, Separate Disputes Along River Oaks Drive
Namdar's mall carries more than $7 million in unpaid property taxes, according to court filings referenced in reporting on the foreclosure suit. Paul's shopping center carries a defaulted $38.3 million loan. Two separate ownership groups, with different financing, face separate financial disputes on the same stretch of road.
The disputes have unfolded against a longer sequence of changes at the mall and across the street.
Here's a compact timeline if you want the whole sequence in one place:
- 2013: Carson's and Sears close their anchor stores at River Oaks Center.
- 2017: Namdar Realty Group buys the mall.
- 2021: A proposed casino anchor at the mall is rejected by state regulators.
- August 2024: Calumet City puts the city-owned former Sears site out for demolition bids.
- October 2024: The City Council approves a $13.2 million quick-take offer; Namdar counters at $40 million.
- April 2025: Namdar sues the city; the suit is later dismissed.
- May 2026: The city drops its own valuation case and asks the Illinois General Assembly for quick-take authority.
- August 2026: A separate $45.6 million foreclosure suit is filed against the Calumet Center property across the street.
What's Actually Worth Watching Next
Three things will move this story forward from here. The first is whether the Illinois General Assembly grants Calumet City the expanded quick-take authority it's asking for, which would let the eminent domain process move without waiting on a Cook County judge to settle the price. The second is how the Calumet Center foreclosure case plays out in Cook County court, since a forced sale there could bring an entirely new owner to that side of the road faster than anything happening at the mall. The third is simpler: how much of the old Sears site is actually cleared once demolition gets underway, since that's the one part of this story residents can watch happen in real time rather than read about in a court filing.
None of it resolves quickly. But knowing that two unrelated disputes are running on parallel tracks, rather than one long argument about a single mall, makes the next headline easier to make sense of when it shows up.
If you're weighing what any of this means for a property near River Oaks Drive, or you just want a straight answer about what's changed and what hasn't, Trademarks & Associates LLC is local and easy to reach. Let's Connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
