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EDWARDSVILLE — Just weeks away from the four-year anniversary of the September 2011 flood — the Mark Plaza in Edwardsville is still largely vacant.

The Edwardsville shopping center once housed a variety of retailers including Redner’s, Payless, Dollar Tree, The Bounce Place and Kmart. But after Toby Creek that runs behind the plaza, backed up and overflowed its banks in 1996, 2004, 2006 and record-setting 42.66 feet on Sept. 9, 2011 — the only retailer that returned was Kmart, which reopened in 2012.

Owners of the 216,401-square-foot strip mall, Acadia Realty Trust in White Plains, New York, had no plans to share about the plaza’s fate.

“All plans for development or remodel are on hold indefinitely for the time being,” Marisa Swystun, the retail leasing agent at Acadia Realty Trust said in an email last week. “I really don’t have further detail.”

Swystun would not elaborate on what “plans” — if any — existed for the development of the defunct plaza or what the “hold” was.

The property’s location on busy Route 11 is within a five-mile radius of 52,336 households. The plaza still attracts interest from potential businesses looking to lease a storefront.

Swystun said she receives “interest about the property about once a month” but could not divulge details citing legal confidentiality.

And yet the majority of the plaza remains shuttered.

David Saraka, building code and zoning officer at Edwardsville Borough, said he has heard nothing from Acadia Trust Realty regarding the future of the Mark Plaza.

“I was my understanding they were not going to do anything,” Saraka said.

Saraka has not received any plans from Acadia Trust Realty on improvements to the shopping center.

It does appear nothing has been done to the property.

Today, the parking lot, designed to accommodate 1,044 vehicles, is fenced off. A metal chain-link fence — from the plaza’s entrance extending through the parking lot to where Kmart’s building connects to the rest of the strip mall — blocks off access to the shuttered storefronts.
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_TTL081515MarkPlaza.jpg" alt="" />
<div class="neCaption">Nearing the four-year anniversary of the September 2011 flood, the Mark Plaza in Edwardsville still has not rebounded.</div>
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<div class="metaInfo">https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_TTL081515MarkPlaza.jpgNearing the four-year anniversary of the September 2011 flood, the Mark Plaza in Edwardsville still has not rebounded. Clark Van Orden | Times Leader</div>
<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_shopping_center.jpg" alt="" />
<div class="neCaption">Stephen Horvath and Zildjian Zablotney check out the Shopping Center along Rt 11 in Edwardsville Sunday morning. Clark Van Orden/photo 9/19/04 (news)</div>
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<div class="metaInfo">https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_shopping_center.jpgStephen Horvath and Zildjian Zablotney check out the Shopping Center along Rt 11 in Edwardsville Sunday morning. Clark Van Orden/photo 9/19/04 (news)Clark Van Orden | Times Leader</div>
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By Eileen Godin

egodin@www.timesleader.com

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Reach Eileen Godin at 570-991-6387 or on Twitter @TLNews.

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Nearly four years after last flood, future of Edwardsville plaza remains murky