Quote:
Originally Posted by gebs
That makes sense. It's a nice neighborhood Whole Foods but with the density that has built up in this area over the last 10 years, it's in dire need of a much larger store.
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No, it doesn't need a larger store. What it needs are more grocery stores. People don't move into dense, urban environments for supercenters, they do so for convenience. Given the choice of walking two blocks to the current Whole Foods or four blocks to a bigger one, most residents would usually walk to the closer one, only going to the bigger one to seek out something unusual.
Groceries have significantly lagged in River North. There is a desperate need for between 1 and 3 more grocery stores in the area. Little shops, like the Galleria at Superior and Orleans, and Foxtrot at Chicago just west of Clark help a little, but a couple more grocery stores on the scale of the Whole Foods on Huron need to be at the South and North ends of the corridor between Wells and Orleans, the River and Oak. Especially the South end.
Realistically, there would be one in Kingsbury Park if those projects had been but today instead of 20 years ago when parking minimums were crazy high. The newer buildings have more captive residents, so I'm sure there will be a grocery store open up in the area in the next 18 months. I had hoped that one of the new towers on Wells would have enough retail space to get one, but that doesn't look to be in the cards. Maybe if that building at Huron and Orleans gets built it will get a grocery store, or maybe something else will surprise.
That Walmart at Chicago and Franklin would have done better if run by a competent manager. The location was right, just the management was terrible.
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