ISU Art Students Illustrate Community Visions for Eastland Mall Future

Eastland Mall sits largely empty in Bloomington, Illinois, waiting for a new developer while residents wonder what will happen to the 53-acre property. To jumpstart local conversations, WGLT hired four art students from Illinois State University to turn community ideas into detailed drawings.

The student artists—Abbey Rademacher, Hayden Engelsman, Troian Fresia, and Loris Tonella—worked under the direction of Professor Mike Wille from the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts. The project tasked the students with bringing five distinct proposals to life: a vertical farm, a public park, a racetrack, a family fun center, and a pocket neighborhood designated for adults over 55 or people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

From Empty Anchors to Community Visions

The property’s decline is no secret. In an October 2025 property tax appeal report filed by law firm Siegel Jennings and obtained by WGLT, mall owner CBL Properties stated that revenues from all sources fell steadily between 2022 and 2024. The firm attributed the losses to the online retail shift known as the “Amazon Effect.”

ISU Art Students Illustrate Community Visions for Eastland Mall Future — Photo: wglt.org

WGLT received more than 2,000 formal submissions and Facebook comments after asking residents how the space should be utilized. Roughly a third of respondents suggested housing options, another third pointed toward a culinary hub for emerging restaurants, and others pitched sports complexes, parks, or entertainment centers.

From those submissions, twenty concepts were shortlisted and narrowed down to five via public voting in August. Among them is the Eastland Grow Hub proposal, imagined by Bloomington resident Gagandeep Singh. Singh, who moved to the area from Rhode Island in 2020, envisioned converting vacant anchor stores into vertical farms paired with an indoor farmers market.

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“We are in the biggest farmland in the U.S. but still we are getting our vegetables and fruits from all across the U.S. and nearby countries,” Singh told WGLT.

Collaboration and the Reality of Client Deadlines

For the student artists, the assignment meant learning how to manage differing creative instincts under strict deadlines. Rademacher noted that compromise was the biggest thing she learned.

“Instead of all of us taking one drawing home and doing it our own way, we all had a hand in making all five of them,” Rademacher said. Each student brought distinct strengths: Fresia focused on detailed drawing, Tonella sketched ideas rapidly, and Rademacher and Engelsman handled color and painting.

While the student artwork does not determine the official future of the property, it provides the community with concrete visuals to spark discussion as the sale to a new developer moves forward.

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