Another vertical mall has opened on the shoppers` paradise of Michigan Avenue. More grocery store-anchored strip centers are under construction in the far reaches of the suburbs. In between, dry cleaners and hair stylists continue to populate ordinary storefronts.
Ho-hum. Retail development goes about its everyday business.
But what`s this? A drugstore inside an old burger joint? Beer tasting at a former pickle factory? Safety deposit boxes replacing shake and soda machines? Is there creativity at work after all?
Sure there is. But because some of the most innovative retail developments represent relatively small leases or out-of-the-way projects, they rarely receive more than passing local notice.
Even though they have been lost amid the racket of gala openings or the rumble of groundbreaking backhoes, several one-of-a-kind developments have sprung up in the last year in both the city and the suburbs. Here is a small, out-of-the-way sample:
– The 1920s-vintage pickle factory at 1830 N. Besly Court, a four-story structure along the east side of the Kennedy Expressway, seemed a likely spot for beermaking in at least one way.
”They say this is one spot Al Capone drank at during Prohibition. But in Chicago, that`s a little like saying George Washington slept here,” said Stephen Dinehart, president of the Chicago Brewing Co.
Dinehart`s 35-piece brewery features equipment imported from West Germany from a 40-year-old Bavarian brewery. The 21,000-square-foot brewery, which is still being finished, is already churning out about 50 barrels a week of its first brand, Legacy Lager. The beer is packaged for sale to retailers.
About 1,500 square feet in the brewery has been set aside for the development of a public tasting room, which will be open to the public tours that Dinehart expects to set up once the brewery work is completed. He hopes to have the tasting room open in December.
”We also want to make the room into a mini-museum to brewing in general and Chicago brewing in particular,” he said.
Dinehart said the most difficult thing about his firm`s search for space in the city was the need to accommodate its 20-foot-high brewing tanks.
”If you went out into the suburbs, you could find ceilings 24 or 30 feet high. But we were looking for industrial space in the city that was relatively accessible and (the ceiling heights) became the primary challenge,” Dinehart said.
In his search, Dinehart ran across the former pickle factory at 1830 N. Besly Court that was being redeveloped by John Marks of Mark IV Realty Inc. When Dinehart agreed to become the first tenant in the 120,000-square-foot project, Marks agreed to help with the vat dilemma by removing parts of the first floor.
– Beer would taste good washing down a little kielbasa, or a lot of it, and that is perhaps what an undisclosed investor has in mind for an old warehouse at 3250-56 N. Milwaukee Ave. The 30,000-square-foot facility in the Avondale neighborhood was purchased earlier this year.
”A local guy, the owner of a Polish deli who doesn`t want a lot of publicity, bought the place,” said Michael Weaver, a broker with Hansen Realty`s commercial division, who handled the sale.
”It`s not confirmed, but he has talked about doing some more space for his deli, about 10,000 feet, and using the rest as an import/export area. But it hasn`t happened yet,” Weaver said.
Imagine a typical Burger King restaurant filled with Polish sausage and then multiply by four. That`s about equal to 10,000 square feet of deli.
– Why would a Burger King be filled with Polish sausage? Maybe for the same reason a former restaurant is now filled with penicillin.
Bucking the trend of drugstore leases these days, many of which have become anchor-type tenants taking 40,000 square feet and more, Walgreen`s this year opened a dozen of its Walgreen`s Express prescription-only pharmacies.
The stores for the most part were placed in small spaces, about 2,500 square feet, in existing shopping centers. And while they don`t offer drive-through service, at least one could have because it went into a former Burger King restaurant.
The defunct fast-food franchise at 6818 W. Belmont in Chicago was purchased late last year by Sterling Development Group of Lincolnwood. When Sterling president Joe Garafolo learned of Walgreen`s interest in the Northwest Side neighorhood, he proposed renovating the building to meet the drug chain`s needs.
”It`s definitely what you`d call an adaptive re-use,” Garafolo said.
”It wasn`t so much that we started out with the idea to do the rehab, but that the property was in the area Walgreen`s wanted to be in. The property was available and it made sense to put them in it.
”The site is also relatively big. It would accommodate about a 4,000- or 5,000-square-foot strip center. So if the Burger King renovation didn`t work, you could always build your own center and anchor it yourself,” he said.
The express concept remains a prototype for Walgreen`s and no decision has been made on expanding beyond the current stores, Garafolo said.
– If a former Burger King can become a drugstore, then why not a former McDonald`s? Because it`s already slated to become a bank, that`s why.
The former McDonald`s restaurant on the northeast corner of Rollins Road and Locust Drive in Round Lake Heights came on the market after McDonald`s built a larger restaurant east of the site.
A local financial institution has agreed to purchase the facility and renovate it for bank use, but the deal has not been completed pending regulatory approval from the Federal Reserve.
”It`s been held up for eight months. Maybe they`re thinking the bank is going to give away a burger with every new account,” said A. Rick Scardino, the broker associate with Childs Realty Group in Arlington Heights who put together the sale.
”But it`s really not as much of a stretch as you would think, putting a bank into a nice, brick building,” Scardino said. ”Once it`s gutted, without the walk-in coolers, counters and furniture, it isn`t much of a restaurant anymore.”
Scardino said virtually all of McDonald`s sites are considered prime, because of the amount of research the company puts in to selection. But he said that on the infrequent occasions when McDonald`s sells a restaurant, it stipulates that no other food operation be allowed on the site for 20 years.
”With the difficulties developers are having in building new commercial projects, I think you`ll see a lot more of this kind of re-use, more retrofitting of existing properties and more creativity in the way it`s done,” Scardino said.
– Sometimes all retailers need is a little twist to make their store unusual.
For White Mountain Creamery, that twist comes in the form of ice cream, as well as yogurt and muffins, made before patrons` eyes in the tiny shops.
”You can see the wooden vats, with the ice and salt mixture right in the window. They are turned on, and a couple of hours later-ice cream. People are intrigued by it,” said John J. Sheridan, president of L.J. Sheridan & Co., developer of Sunset Corners shopping center in Lake Forest.
The White Mountain Creamery chain, which started in Vermont, opened its first Chicago-area store earlier this year in 1,100 square feet at Sunset Corners, at Conway and Waukegan Roads. Sheridan said the company is looking for additional sites.
– Not all innovative retailing operations jell as quickly as ice cream, however.
The Dairy Market Express, Illinois` first and maybe last fully enclosed drive-through convenience store, opened earlier this year in northwest suburban Lake Zurich and closed within six months.
The prototype 3,000-square-foot store was built on a streetside lot in the Lakeview Plaza shopping center at U.S. Highway 12 and Illinois Highway 22. The store provided two special lanes for drive-in customers, who entered an enclosure through an automated overhead door. Shoppers simply gave their order to an employee, who gathered and bagged the items, and after they paid the bill they were on the way out the opposite end.
”It was like getting an oil change. You go in one door, they load you up, you`re out the other door and the car never quits running,” said Joseph Vega, a broker with Mid-America Real Estate Corp. who put together the lease for the store.
The store was the brainchild of three Chicago-area brothers, Doug, Bruce and Brian Miller. The Millers could not be reached for comment.
Vega said the concept, based on similar stores on Long Island, was designed to appeal to security-conscious convenience shoppers, especially women shopping in the evening.
”When I first heard of it, I didn`t think it was unusual. I thought the idea had great potential,” Vega said. ”It has to go in a little more affluent area because the prices are a little higher, but it would work anywhere that security was a concern.”
While waiting for the Millers to ”iron the bugs out” of the prototype, Vega had been searching for additional locations for the stores where he thought the concept would work, such as Lincoln Park on the city`s North Side. But the bugs apparently got the better of things.
