When folks in Westmont think about the 21st Century, they look across the DuPage-Cook County line to historic La Grange, built in the late 1800s.
Central La Grange still has that turn-of-the-century feel, but with a modern-day polish.
Its two train stations draw more than 2,000 commuters a day toward its shop and restaurant district. Cast-iron street lamps flicker on as dusk falls. Children on bicycles speed along the sidewalks. A jazz band warms up for an evening performance at a coffee shop.
At a time when most suburban village centers have lost their foot traffic to shopping malls, La Grange has managed to pull its residents inward.
A new state program hopes to turn that success into a trend for several communities, including Westmont and Winfield in DuPage County.
Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra launched the Illinois Main Street program three years ago to help small towns spruce up their downtowns. This year, the program added the suburbs.
Even as subdivisions multiply and huge discount stores sprout within vast parking lots, the old-style main street has its place in the modern suburb, said Nick Kalogeresis, coordinator of the state’s suburban program.
“They’re all suffering from the same thing,” Kalogeresis said. “Downtowns are no longer the economic engine of the community.”
What they need, he said, is some design work and a little old-fashioned salesmanship. In other words, suburban centers need to be managed and marketed just as intensely as shopping malls.
Highway strip malls will never have the charm of a corner ice cream parlor or family-run Italian deli, he argued. Suburbs need to play up their differences.
“It is going to be a challenge to sell your downtown in a market where lots of other communities are,” Kalogeresis said. “You have to look at the demographics of your customers–who they are and what kind of goods they buy.”
The Main Street program advocates a four-step process, one designed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington. It is the same process that La Grange adopted six years ago, independent of state help.
“In the ’70s, Oakbrook (Center) Mall really took all the businesses away, so we really had to rethink what people wanted,” said Sara King, executive director of Main Street La Grange.
To do that, the village formed four groups.
The first focused on building a local organization that could draw on everyone, from the PTA to the Lions Club to the chamber of commerce.
Another group focused on historic preservation, creating a turn-of-the-century design motif for the whole area and then providing interest-free loans to businesses for facade improvements.
The third thought about marketing: planning festivals, retail promotions and advertising. A fourth worked, and still does, to restructure the downtown economy, placing more emphasis on retail and less on office space and services.
The goal is to attract street traffic. A pedestrian mall that flopped in the 1980s was reopened into a one-way street, for example, and has since attracted restaurants.
Illinois Main Street offers technical expertise for such transformations, but no funding. Market specialists will do polling and demographic research, an architect will offer historic design suggestions and consultants will help them recruit the proper mix of businesses, Kalogeresis said.
He said both Westmont and Winfield will want to focus their development around their Metra stops.
“It’s great to have a Metra stop right downtown, because already you have a captive audience,” he said.
Winfield tavern and restaurant owner John Karwoski has the perfect location, at a busy intersection near the train station.
As the third generation of his family to own John’s Buffet, Karowski respects tradition. His grandfather once ran an ice cream parlor and speakeasy on the site where the Village Hall now stands.
But times have changed. This year, he and his brother, Jim, will de-emphasize the alcohol business, closing their liquor store to expand their restaurant.
“Years ago, we got a lot more construction workers, people in the trades,” Karowski said. “Now, we get a lot more lawyers and judges and folks from the hospital.”
He is helping out with Winfield’s first Main Street initiative, putting a small park on the corner of Jewell and Winfield Roads.
Winfield is a spot where three nature trails meet, and it should have a proper pedestrian hub, he said.
“It really would be to everyone’s advantage to develop the paths right downtown,” he said.
Farther east, in Westmont, new business owner Kelly Fisher would like to see the community market itself better.
Traffic at his coffee shop, Brewed Awakenings, has not been sufficient to break even. A catering business supports it.
“It’s really vital to draw new people into the downtown area,” he said.
Both communities are hoping to attract major stores to their center. Westmont looks jealously at the Gap in downtown Oak Park, for example.
The concept of attracting major retailers is not so far-fetched. National developer Steven Guttman of Federal Realty Investment Trust in Bethesda, Md., was in Chicago last month to visit prospective communities. He buys up entire city blocks and turns them into old-style retail complexes.
“We feel that the consumer today and retailers both favor main streets. They are closer to the people and less expensive to the tenants,” Guttman said. “We think it’s a very strong area.”
