Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
It's a bit of a misconception that these businesses survive on local neighborhood customers alone. The most successful urban shopping districts are destinations for people both city-wide and region-wide. What happened is that the Koreans suburbanized and decided it was more convenient to shop out there (just visited the huge new Joong Boo Market in Glenview) and other groups in the neighborhood are accustomed to shopping in other areas, but not on Bryn Mawr.
Also Chicago just structurally has too much commercial zoning on grid streets relative to population, so only certain streets will really thrive and it's sometimes counter-intuitive which ones. Go to plenty of S Side neighborhoods and you'll see well-maintained homes and beautiful side streets but lots of empty lots and vacancy on the main streets.
Should also point out that the flow of immigrants that kept refreshing these areas and bringing new businesses in has really dried up. We are in a very long dip in immigration levels to Chicago... So in lieu of a new immigrant group coming in and colonizing Bryn Mawr, the city and alderman will have to start allowing new, denser buildings on that stretch AND get used to a future with fewer businesses on the street.
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The thing is though the Koreans left 20+ years ago and the stores are empty after all this time and this is not a struggling neighborhood. There isn't much retail or anything nearby the neighborhood and I would say the street is 80%-90% vacant. There is not even a bar and maybe only one or two tiny restaurants which were closed. Northeastern Illinois University is nearby too.
So I looked it up and found an article from this year. Northeastern Illinois bought up many of the businesses through eminent domain with the plans of expanding the campus with 300,000 square feet of housing and mixed use on Bryn Mawr but cancelled leaving much of the area with vacant buildings (all the University did was kick everyone out and left the buildings as is but now empty) and thus it spiraled from there. And on top of that landlords can get lower property tax rate if the space is not leased, not just the University. It's hard to get businesses in next to vacant buildings. That is enough for building owners to just leave buildings empty - I'm not sure if the law has been changed but this was recent as of a few years ago and even if the law has changed the damage may have been done already. Reading about this street and vacancy, the residents of the area want something like a bars, restaurants, some retail and mixed use developments. Good luck if the University still owns it - and even on the street were the University doesn't own, its hard to attract investment with vacant stuff nearby.
Bryn Mawr
https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/...?itok=DBJe4AZB