Chicago’s retail boom isn’t exclusive to luxury fashion, though new stores by Jimmy Choo and Chanel and a soon-to-open Marc Jacobs boutique in Bucktown might lead you to think otherwise.
Chic urban neighborhoods including the Gold Coast, Wicker Park and Bucktown, as well as tony North Shore suburbs such as Winnetka, Highland Park, and Glencoe, are absorbing the majority of the luxury retail growth. But outside of these enclaves, big-box, discount and food retailers are booming.
The Chicagoland area is expected to see nearly 24 million square feet of new shopping center development in the next two years, for a total of 132 new or redeveloped projects, according to Mid-America Real Estate Corp.
Much of the new development is big-box stores, including Lowe’s, The Home Depot, Target and especially Wal-Mart, which is opening 200,000-square-foot Supercenters throughout the region. Much of the new development is spurred on by the defeat of a big-box ordinance, a pioneering piece of legislation by the city of Chicago that would have required $1 billion companies operating stores of 90,000 square feet or more to pay their employees at least $10 an hour and $3 an hour in fringe benefits by 2010. The ordinance, which clearly targeted Wal-Mart and Target, was shot down by veto in the fall, which has cleared the way for new development, according to Mid-America Real Estate vice president Andy Bulson.
“In the city of Chicago and surrounding communities, there are a number of industrial sites that are being considered for redevelopment into retail sites,” he said in the company’s annual Shopping Center Report.