‘I cry every day’: Circle Centre businesses think they’re being pushed out
INDIANAPOLIS (MIRROR INDY) — As foot traffic has declined at Circle Centre Mall, it’s become more difficult for Don Tsering to keep his family business alive. In October, he finally gave up and plastered “store closing” and “everything must go!” signs out front.
“We just cannot make money,” Tsering said. “We don’t have business. That’s why there’s no people — no customers.”
The 6-year-old Auspicious Boutique is just one of at least half a dozen businesses inside the downtown mall that have packed up and left in recent months following years of closures of national brands.
In late December, Wisconsin-based Hendricks Commercial Properties announced it would redevelop the mall into a $600-million property containing retail, housing, offices and entertainment over at least 10 years. Hendricks purchased the mall in April, taking over management from Chicago-based JLL.
Hendricks appeared to want to start off on the right foot with the remaining tenants. In a January interview with Mirror Indy, Hendricks President and CEO Rob Gerbitz said the company wanted to communicate openly and work with the existing businesses.
“This is no effort to push anybody out by any stretch of the imagination,” Gerbitz said at the time.
But small business owners feel like that promise has been broken. In interviews with Mirror Indy, seven current and former mall tenants described a general feeling that Hendricks Commercial Properties is starving them out ahead of eventual redevelopment by not updating them about the construction timeline and not promoting the businesses that remain at Circle Centre.
Business owners also described maintenance problems, including that elevators and escalators are often broken. That issue, combined with the mall’s increasing emptiness, has led to a perception that Circle Centre is already closed.
In response to multiple interview requests and a list of questions about concerns from tenants, Hendricks Commercial Properties said it did not have any updates on a timeline for the redevelopment project.
“Communicating with tenants and key stakeholders will continue to be a top priority, and we truly appreciate the community’s enthusiasm and patience as we work together to shape an exciting future for this important part of downtown,” Hendricks spokesperson RoseAnn Haedt wrote in a prepared statement.
As part of a preliminary development agreement, Hendricks is poised to receive at least $64 million in incentives from the city of Indianapolis and the Indiana Economic Development Corp., according to the Indianapolis Business Journal.
In a statement to Mirror Indy, the city said that the company, not the city, communicates with Hendricks about leasing issues.
“Hendricks continues to work closely with the city and community partners on exploring opportunities best suited to the community’s wants and needs in preparation for redevelopment,” Lucas González, spokesperson for the city’s Department of Metropolitan Development, said in a prepared statement.
Yet Apollo Bean, who owns Apollo’s Fine Fashions on the second floor, said he’s had essentially no communication with Hendricks since the company took over management, and he suspects that the silence is part of an effort to urge businesses to leave on their own.
“Back six months ago, you could walk into the (management) office,” he said. “Now the office is locked. There’s nobody.”
Some days, Bean said he hasn’t made a single sale. For a small business owner, that’s a burden. He’s considering banding together with businesses downtown to buy ads and market themselves, since he doesn’t think that mall management will ever do so.
“People think this mall is dead, gone, basically buried,” he said. “This is why people are not coming down here.”
Redevelopment stopped traffic ‘cold turkey’
Circle Centre Mall opened in 1995 as American mall culture was nearing the end of its peak.
The mall’s construction in the early 1990s was funded by a group of 20 companies and city government, and was largely heralded as a transformative development at a time city officials were trying to revive downtown Indianapolis.
But over the years, anchor department stores such as Nordstrom and Carson’s left. As more national brands moved out, Circle Centre became a hub for local businesses, following the lead of other once-successful malls like Washington Square Mall on the east side. Circle Centre’s relatively affordable rent and downtown proximity to the Indiana Convention Center made it an ideal place for small business owners to get their start.
Kamilah James used to own two businesses on the third floor of Circle Centre Mall — Cafe’ at the Circle and Kemet 360 Jewelry and Accessories. At one point, she was hopeful the mall could build a new future off small business momentum.
But as foot traffic slowed, James struggled. She closed Kemet in October 2023, citing a lack of business, and her cafe shuttered in March after less than a year in business. Even big conventions and events like the NBA All-Star Game weren’t enough to make up for a lack of customers. Coupled with confusion from the redevelopment announcement, she decided not to renew her lease.
“What that did is stop traffic immediately — cold turkey,” she said. “With that publicity, it worked negatively for the business.”
‘I cry every day when I come in here’
While the mall had been troubled for years under Simon Property Group and JLL, tenants say that the situation at Circle Centre has devolved since Hendricks purchased the mall in April.
When a clogged pipe flooded part of the third floor this year, Nikki Johnson had to shut down her vegan restaurant The Alkaline Electric Goddess for two weeks.
While she wasn’t liable to fix the pipe, she had to borrow several thousand dollars from family and friends to recoup the cost of food she had to throw out.
“I lost everything that day,” she said.
Johnson said she still has not been reimbursed for rent from the closure, though in emails she shared with Mirror Indy, a Hendricks representative said the company was “working with our leasing and legal teams to provide rent relief for all the tenants in the food court.”
Johnson wants to leave, but she feels called to continue to be a healthy option in the mall’s food court.
“I cry every day when I come in here,” Johnson said.
Rafael Coleman, who owns R&R Barber & Beauty Salon, first came to the mall nine years ago. In that time, he’s seen business after business leave — and it’s disheartening.
“It’s embarrassing when people come into our city from out of town and ask us questions like, ‘Why is it like this over here?’” he said. “We can’t give them a good answer.”
Coleman said he’s heard conflicting rumors about Circle Centre’s fate, including that tenants have to be out by the end of the year. Hendricks did not address Mirror Indy’s question about this claim.
Because of the confusion and lack of communication, Coleman said he plans to leave at the end of the year. He’ll move his barbershop two blocks north to the Claypool Court complex on Washington Street.
Until then, he hopes to get by with the reputation he’s built in his time at Circle Centre.
“I got a nice clientele base, and they’re loyal,” Coleman said, as he cut a customer’s hair. “So I’m just here, just waiting on the wheel to fall off.”
Claire Rafford covers higher education for Mirror Indy in partnership with Open Campus. Contact Claire at claire.rafford@mirrorindy.org or on Instagram/X @clairerafford.