“Business hasn’t ended completely, or all of these stores would be closed,” said a worker at George’s Music Room, a Midway Airport shop where the employees Wednesday at times outnumbered the customers browsing through CDs and other offerings. “But man, it is dead.”
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Next month, officials plan to evaluate sales totals for the 30-day period following Sept. 11, and Aviation Commissioner Thomas Walker said he will consider rent relief if it is appropriate.
“We certainly will look at it and do what is fair and reasonable,” he said. “We are not here to put anybody out of business. We are here to try to create business for Chicago [firms] and Chicago residents.”
O’Hare and Midway were shut down for three days after the attacks, and the number of flights and passengers have been far below normal at both fields since operations resumed.
Adding to the woes of the roughly 165 concessionaires at O’Hare and 50 at Midway are new security rules that prohibit people without tickets from the areas beyond security checkpoints where some stores and restaurants at both airports are located.
The downturn has been particularly cruel at Midway, where more than 20 merchants opened new operations within the last few months just inside the secured area.
In August, George Daniels, owner of George’s Music Room, an independent store on the West Side, was enthusiastic about his opportunity to become part of what then was a vibrant scene at the airport.
“How often does something like this come along for a single store retailer, to do business alongside major brand names?” Daniels said at the time in an interview with the Tribune. “We’re basically small business people from the neighborhoods.”
Attempts to reach Daniels for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Another newcomer to Midway said he had no regrets about his decision to open at the airport.
“Anybody who doesn’t make the investment because it could fall on its face, that guy isn’t going to go anywhere,” said Boz O’Brien, proprietor of Reilly’s Daughter, an Oak Lawn pub whose Midway satellite is scheduled to open next week. “I think America will deal with this and come back stronger than ever.”
People without tickets historically have represented only about 5 percent of the retail business at Chicago’s airports, Walker said.
Nevertheless officials are investigating the possibility of moving the security checkpoint at Midway beyond the new concession area.
“It’s being looked at,” said Monique Bond, an Aviation Department spokeswoman. But “nothing can be done to compromise safety and security.”
At O’Hare, concessionaires are scattered across the concourses, and many are located close to gates, rendering any relocation of security impossible.
Like O’Brien at Midway, one merchant new to O’Hare said he has had no second thoughts about his decision to locate at the airport.
Nat Hyman of Hyman Airport Inc., operator of Landau Costume Jeweller, a shop that opened in Terminal 2 in June, believes that “common sense will prevail” and air travel will return to something approaching normal.
And the time-consuming security check-in procedures now in place may help business by creating more time to shop, he said.
Concessionaires at O’Hare and Midway typically have leases that establish a minimum rent as well as a percentage of gross sales, often set in the 10 percent to 12 percent range.
Terms of the leases can be altered if business is affected by events beyond the merchants’ control, Walker said.
Rent from merchants generated about $160 million at O’Hare last year and about $24 million at Midway. The money is used to help cover airport operating expenses.
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