Downtown Elmhurst residents will be able to buy some groceries in the Osco drug store at Schiller and Palmer Drives while the companion Jewel store is torn down and rebuilt.
Jewel officials closed the 40-year-old store last weekend and moved its canned goods, staples and some frozen foods into the 20-year-old Osco addition. Once the new Jewel opens next summer, the company will tear down the Osco and use the space for more parking.
More Top Picks Sound System
The city had to do much to keep Jewel as the last remaining downtown grocery. To get an acceptable layout for the new building, Jewel wanted to expand over the parking lot of Elmhurst Clinic, 172 Schiller.
Elmhurst Hospital, which owns the clinic, refused to sell the 56-space lot unless Jewel replaced it with another equally convenient for clinic patients. The city bought the Fiebrandt heating and cooling building next door, helped the business relocate to north York Street and then razed the building and paved the lot at a total cost of about $200,000.