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Originally Posted by ardecila
But there's nothing on Chicago west of Orleans except a Starbucks and a Chase Bank. The Chase is elegantly done and complements Yamasaki's Montgomery building, but I would have preferred pretty much any other tenant. There's no convenience retail, no grocery stores, zilch.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by k1052
Or a Trader Joe's. Something.
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Originally Posted by the urban politician
Why not at least a small bodega?
I'm willing to wager that something of that sort will open up in that new tower on Chicago Ave. still a lot of available retail there.
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There was, for a short period of time, a Bockwinkles in the lower level of the Groupon building. At the time it didn't last because every unit there had parking, so people just drove to bigger grocery stores. *That* is the biggest reason there isn't a grocery store in the area, because all those first-generation residential conversions and new towers were built with entirely too much parking, not creating the partially-captive, pedestrian customer base that things like urban grocery stores require to be viable.
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Originally Posted by kemachs
Agreed. Developers are getting away with this throughout central Denver, and it's really creating an awful urban experience - all the drawbacks of density (mainly clogged streets, b/c Denver transit is amateur hour) without the positive attributes. Chicago in general is much, much better in this regard, but I don't like the precedent these River North condo buildings are setting.
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It would be literally impossible for every building in River North to have viable retail/commercial space on the ground floor. To the extent that the City can help with that, they could designate the commercial corridors and force/encourage retail for those lots while discouraging it on non-retail corridors. To that end, Ontario west of Orleans is one such corridor, Orleans itself is largely that way, Chicago obviously is, Wells is, and one other corridor should probably be created.
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Originally Posted by west-town-brad
is retail at the base of every building really a good idea in the age of amazon?
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No, it's not. The City should be taking a more active role in designating retail corridors so that they can organize the infrastructure around them. It would calm a lot of NIMBY types if the City could express a cohesive logic to how they arrange them, plus make it easier for people to confidently buy on a non-retail street if that's what they desire.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
Yawn. This area is an auto-oriented, vertical suburb, and this development does nothing to change the status quo.
Brendan Reilly annoyingly continues to block grocery stores west of Orleans (first in The Hudson, then in Onni's proposal for the Clark/Barlow site). It's unlikely that we'll see one in the Cabrini-Green redevelopment (apart from Target, 1/2 mile north) or in O'Donnell's redevelopment on the Tribune site.
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He came around on parking theory, so that he no longer requires excessive parking ratios. That will help, but going hand-in-hand with that is making sure there is a walkable grocery store. To the extent he could be convinced to allow one, expressing it as a necessary part of preventing excess parking is probably the most likely to succeed argument.
Currently, there is the Galleria on the NW corner of Orleans and Superior. Not a full-service grocery store, but not dissimilar from a Manhattan-style bodega. There is a 7-11 convenience store at Ontario and Kingsbury. There is a small market in the Merchandise Mart. A CVS with some groceries on the NW corner of Hubbard/Orleans. A convenience store with some groceries on the SW corner of Chestnut/Orleans and a Goddess and Grocer on Larrabee about where Chestnut would be if it went through. Fulton and Canal as a small convenience store/market. Chicago/Orleans has that Walgreens.
So there are a few places that meet the needs of convenience items and prepared foods that locals want, but I agree a small-footprint, actual grocery store would improve the area immensely and enable more people to choose to actually go car-free in the Kingsbury Park sub-area of River North.
I live between Lasalle and Wells on Huron. Whole Foods is a five-minute walk so it's my primary grocer, but I will sometimes walk to the Jewel at Ohio/State. And at least once a month I take a Divvy up to the Target on Division and since it opened a few months ago, sometimes to the Jewel at Clark/Division. I will also occasionally shop at Potash Brothers at State/Chestnut or the Treasure Island at Clark/Elm. I also occasionally get more than just liquor at Copperfields, the convenience store at Clark/Huron, or the Walgreens at Clark/Ontario. The CVS at Wells/Huron will, I'm sure, benefit from my proximity. I was kind of hoping that there would be a small-footprint grocer in the Exhibit's Lasalle retail space but so far I've not heard anything about what may go into that space. I also wish that either Gap, Banana Republic, American Apparel, or Zara would go into some of the new retail space on Wells. When I first moved in there was a small clothing store where the new Huron/Wells CVS is going in - I would occasionally get basics from it due to the convenience - I'd love to have that same convenience back. Also, the retail space on the NE corner of Huron/Wells will be activated sometime in the next year once some structural repairs are completed (you don't even what to know what that repair work is going to be doing to my assessments since that building is part of my condo association
).
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