The stretch of Milwaukee Avenue that runs through Logan Square offers the kind of contradictions frequently found in gentrifying parts of Chicago.
Mixed in among the empty storefronts and a Family Dollar store are a buzz-worthy craft brewery and a bike repair shop that turns out the “fixed gear” rides hipsters moving into the area covet.
As the Northwest Side neighborhood struggles with its identity, plans for a new Walmart on what’s now a vacant wholesale grocery store site have become a flash point in the fight over the area’s future.
The owner of the building and parking lot at Milwaukee and California avenues has been in talks with the giant retailer about opening a “neighborhood market” store, a smaller outpost with mostly groceries.
But Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, 1st, has taken steps to block the plan. He recently pushed to rezone the property from retail to manufacturing, which would prevent the company from opening there. In Chicago, aldermen traditionally have almost complete control over zoning issues in their wards.
The alderman insists his beef is with the property’s owner, John Burns, and not Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which in recent years has battled unions and their City Council allies to gain a foothold in Chicago.
Moreno acknowledges he has watched Logan Square welcome more of the locally owned businesses that have followed the 20-somethings in skinny jeans northwest from Wicker Park the past several years.
Wal-Mart doesn’t exactly match the profile. “I don’t think they’re a perfect fit for the area, no,” Moreno said.
U.S. Census Bureau data show Logan Square’s demographic shift. The community is still majority Latino, but that group fell by more than 20,000 from 2000 to 2010. The white population, meanwhile, increased by more than 10,000 during that time. That’s in contrast to the trend of Chicago as a whole, whose white population fell the past decade as the number of Latino residents grew.
Moreno’s vision is the latest of several attempts to pull the key street out of its decades-long doldrums.
For much of the 20th century, Milwaukee Avenue was a street-side retail bazaar that cut northwest through the North Side. Successive waves of immigrants — Scandinavians and Germans beginning in the 19th century, later Latinos — counted on the stores for discount clothing and inexpensive furniture, according to John McDermott, the housing and land use director for the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.
“But those kinds of stores really got hit hard by the big box stores,” McDermott said. “Milwaukee is still reeling from that.”
The city in 2000 designated Milwaukee from Western Avenue to Pulaski Road a tax-increment financing district, meaning the area was declared blighted and eligible for special property tax incentives to spur development. The North Milwaukee Avenue Corridor Plan was completed in 2008 under the guidance of then-Ald. Manuel Flores. It called for “transit-oriented development” to take advantage of the CTA’s California Blue Line station by adding housing for people looking to commute downtown.
Burns purchased several properties, including the Dearborn Wholesale Grocers site, planning to develop the mix of residences and stores called for in the master plan. “Then the bottom fell out” of the real estate market, he said.
At a City Council Zoning Committee hearing in July, Burns testified that the need in Logan Square for fresh foods like those Wal-Mart offers is obvious. “The area does not have a grocery store. I live three blocks from this site, and when I need basic groceries I have to get in my car, and all my neighbors do,” Burns told aldermen.
To Moreno, Wal-Mart is a better fit in the “food deserts” on the South and West sides, where the company has gotten approval to open most of its stores. “I don’t have a food desert in Logan Square,” the alderman said, pointing to independent grocers in the neighborhood and chains like Jewel-Osco and Dominick’s a mile or two away.
More important, Moreno said, Burns has been inflexible about discussing options for the site. The property has fallen into foreclosure, and Burns wants to consider only large-scale projects that will “make him whole” on his investment, Moreno said.
Though McDermott acknowledged the area could support “a new grocery store, maybe two,” he said the families who have long called the neighborhood home aren’t keen to see a Walmart store, either. The neighborhood association signed a letter supporting Moreno’s position.
At Moreno’s request, the Zoning Committee voted to change the property’s classification to manufacturing. Moreno has yet to ask the full City Council to ratify it as he tries to work out a solution. It’s unlikely many in Logan Square want a factory opening up there instead of a store, but the threat of a zoning change buys Moreno time.
The zoning panel’s decision not to forward its recommendation to the council also came after Burns argued he was being singled out because he was in talks with Wal-Mart. “It has been very clear to me that the tenant is the impetus behind the alderman’s plan to downzone my property,” Burns said at the July hearing. “The tenant is Wal-Mart, they plan to build a neighborhood market on the property.”
Burns’ attorney told aldermen that Moreno’s attempted zoning change was “contrary to city rules and state law.”
Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo said he believes the company discussed opening a store on Burns’ property, but does not know how far the talks had progressed.
Burns declined to provide specifics last week on the status of negotiations, but he painted a bleak picture of the business environment on Milwaukee. “It’s a depressed area,” he said.
Moreno, on the other hand, sees a bright future.
“Whenever anyone talks to me about opening something in the ward, I tell them, ‘You’ve got to go west of Western,'” Moreno said. “‘If you don’t, in five or six years you’ll be kicking yourself.'”
Tribune news application developer Joe Germuska contributed.
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