Water Tower Place — Attraction in Chicago

I’ve lived in Illinois for almost all my life and always loved coming to WTP. Sadly, my latest visit left me bewildered. I suppose it was my mistake coming on one of the busiest days yet I am a person who is overstimulated easily and went to the RESTroom to decompress. I now live in Kenosha and was spending the weekend on the city so I had a backpack with me. There was a lengthy line for the woman’s room so I waited patiently for my turn then entered a free stall. Organizing is a great way I’ve found to ground myself when being overstimulated so I took the time to rearrange my backpack’s contents while listening to music. My headphones were noise-cancelling so I couldn’t hear what was going on around me until the songs switched over, it was then I heard rumblings of how long I’d been in my stall. I’m assuming at some point these people had also tried to get my attention by calling to me yet I could not hear them. Eventually I finished repacking but by then I was completely on edge and overwhelmed again by impatient patrons of this establishment. I couldn’t have spent more than 10 minutes in the stall yet to these cretins I was being treated as if it had been hours. When I exited to wash my hands, every surrounding female was burning holes into me with their eyes; deeply unsettling. The worst part being as I left the RESTroom, I passed the 3 police officers I can only assume were there to remove me, investigate the “issue”, or perhaps even arrest me. Being a female POC, detention was a reality I came way too close to. It is extremely unfortunate the narrow minded fear-mongers ran the show that day as I will never be returning due to how ostracized I felt. I know how rattled the privileged get when you come between them and their privileges but damn. Please remember, the bathroom is a privilege and not a right. And above all, it is a RESTROOM. Have some...

The mall has constantly changing shops.

So very little caters to anything outside of fashion or jewelry. The "food court" no longer exists. Since Jan 2022, 10 stores have left.

The mall owner intro totes "Over 100 unique stores". There are, as of Feb 15th 2022, 31 unique shops and 4 places to get food. Add 2 more if you count auntie Anne's and Garrets popcorn.

On Dec 31st 2023 - Mburger Do rite donuts Frankie's slice And all other food options on the Mezzanine level closed.

The mall is mostly dead as most major anchors and stores have pulled out, including, but not limited to the following:

Macys Victoria Secrets Pink Alex/Ani Swarovski Abercrombie Hollister Fossil Oakley David's Tea Marbles Banana Republic Food life ATT TMobile Sprint

2023/24 Tenants that have left- Pandora Aldo American Eagle (clothing)

The mall hours are no longer in line with other retailers and malls in the area, really limiting who can shop & when most days.

The lack of developement by mall management and ownership has left all the tenants scratching their heads, while ownership scratches their collectives behinds.

2 places to eat, one place to sit down, not a stitch of "family entertainment" in the mall. If you're looking for women's clothing, jewelry or some generic sports merch or some really exciting Alibaba merch, this is the place for you.

Otherwise, head literally anywhere else! This mall only cares whether or not you spend your money.

Nevermind the $40+ parking if you come anytime before 5pm..when you know, the mall is only open until 7pm.

Make your own judgments, but this mall is abysmal, still. Edited...

Hello,

We were in your main entrance area near “wow bao” in Chicago, Illinois on 4/30/23 at around 2:30 pm. The main security guard stationed by the escalators with short, shaved hair was EXTREMELY rude. My son had a meltdown and was crying. We were trying to soothe him and he was only crying for a couple minutes. Everyone around us did not seem to mind, even the other guard with longer hair was trying to help us with our son. The area was very loud already. I walked away for a few seconds and could barely hear him crying so it was not disturbing anyone, only this security guard with short hair. He was EXTREMELY rude about the situation. Told us we needed to leave. He tried to boot us to the streets for a crying baby. A totally normal thing for people to hear and for a baby. Our son eventually stopped as we knew he would and was fine but the way this man reacted and treated us was poor. He spent the rest of the time talking under his breath about us and giving us mean glares. We felt extremely unwelcome at water tower place because of him. We eventually left even though we planned on spending our entire day there. We don’t even want to go back for the rest of our trip because of this gentlemen. It makes us so sad that we were treated that way while we were trying to care for our son as parents who are doing everything we can to soothe him. And like I mentioned. He was not very loud at all and no one around us seemed to mind at all. I read the code of conduct and not anywhere does it say he can boot us over a crying baby which he was only crying for a...