Regency Centers has been quietly but steadily muscling up its Midwest footprint, rolling out a string of redevelopments and new leases that stretch from dense Chicago neighborhoods to Cincinnati suburbs. From a just-opened Kroger Marketplace in West Chester Township to fresh tenant rosters at Mellody Farm and Willow Festival, the pattern is clear: grocery-anchored, necessity-driven retail is still Regency's favorite playbook.
In a sponsored column for the Chicago Business Journal, Regency market officer Nick Koglin walks through the company's recent wins across Illinois and Ohio and frames them as part of a disciplined, self-funded growth strategy. The piece reads like a status report, cataloging acquisitions, redevelopments and tenant additions that sketch out Regency's current Midwest game plan.
Ohio: West Chester Plaza Gets a Kroger Marketplace
At West Chester Plaza, Regency has reworked a long-running Kroger site into a full Marketplace format, with the expanded store opening earlier this month. The roughly 123,000-square-foot location at 7855 Tylersville Road debuted with a ribbon-cutting and giveaways, according to WCPO/Journal-News. In parallel, Regency's filings list West Chester as an in-process redevelopment in the company's project pipeline.
Chicagoland Centers Keep Adding Restaurants and Specialty Retail
Mellody Farm - the mixed-use transformation built on a former 55-acre parcel in Vernon Hills - continues to layer in curated dining and retail. Mendocino Farms opened at the center in April, according to the Daily Herald, with Sephora among the recent retail arrivals.
Not far away, Naperville Plaza holds its ground as a neighborhood staple, anchored by independent operators. Longtime grocer Casey's Foods and family-run Oswald's Pharmacy - which traces its roots to 1875 - keep everyday traffic flowing and underscore Regency's reliance on established, hyper-local tenants.
Old Town and Northbrook Show Different Plays
Regency's 2023 acquisition of Old Town Square, an 87,000-square-foot center anchored by Jewel-Osco in the Old Town/Gold Coast corridor, has been read in commercial-real-estate reporting as a deliberate bet on dense, grocery-anchored infill. It is a classic Regency move: buy well-located everyday retail and work the merchandising mix rather than chase splashy ground-up projects.
Farther north, Willow Festival on the North Shore represents the scale play. The roughly 403,000-square-foot campus lists Whole Foods, Lowe's and HomeGoods as anchors, and is adding destination tenants such as PGA Tour Superstore, according to the property's listing at Regency Centers.
All of these moves, taken together, underline a Midwest strategy built around shoring up everyday retail with proven anchors and a carefully curated tenant roster, instead of speculative, land-heavy builds. That emphasis on selective, self-funded redevelopments is the throughline Regency itself highlights in its messaging to local officials and investors, as laid out in the Chicago Business Journal update.
