Roosevelt Collection, Chicago, Illinois

The Roosevelt Collection is a 1.3M SF mixed-use development located in the heart of Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood. The existing lifestyle center is comprised of 391,000 SF of retail, 342 residential units, and three levels of parking with 1,500 spaces.

The movie theater involved in the property expressed frustration with prolonged egress times. The configuration of the entry and exit lanes, where all exiting traffic flow was being routed to the main exit lane that was one car length wide, as well as a lack of signage indicating a secondary, quicker exit from the facility and the lack of prepayment encouragement which caused customers to have to process credit card transactions in lane, resulted in complaints from customers and tenants.

The local SP+ team began to study traffic flow and signage and came up with a plan to reverse the traffic at the main entry/exit plaza so that there were more exits. Signage and new garage striping was developed to reinforce the new traffic flow as well as direct customers to a secondary exit to avoid the chokepoint that is created on Roosevelt road when a large egress occurs. Additionally, SP+ worked directly with Amano McGann and the theater to integrate the theater POS system and the onsite PARCS equipment. This custom integration took the payment of the parking charges out of the garage and allowed the theater to charge for parking and provide the customer with a validation that would be instantly redeemed at the exit, reduced overall in-lane transactions and making the theater egress much more efficient.

The results of the above reversal of the traffic lane, additional signage and prepayment encouragement and integration increased the efficiency of the egress at the facility to the point where the theater was no longer upset about the parking experience of their customers. While there are some egress limitations present at the facility – an eventual bottleneck for vehicles waiting for a green light on Roosevelt – the process of exiting the facility was no longer the cause of abnormal wait times.