The Loop’s retail comeback continues.
Retail rents stayed on the increase last year, rising 16 percent, to $56.33 per square foot, according to Baum Realty Group, a Chicago-based retail real estate firm that conducted a survey.
Ironically, vacancy rates also were up. Of the 1,115 storefronts in the Loop, 14.7 percent were empty as of last December, up slightly from 13.8 percent the previous year.
So how do you get rising rents and vacancies? It’s easy when a bevy of redevelopment projects are under way, each of them adding to the inventory of available retail space.
Despite the flurry of activity, it’s clear that the Loop’s retail evolution continues to favor dining and finance. Last year, almost half of the retail deals done in the Loop were for fast-food restaurants, the survey found. Full-service restaurants accounted for 10 percent. Almost a quarter of leases signed were for banks and other financial businesses, while only about 20 percent were for fashion-oriented and general retailers.
Mayor Daley is unlikely to be pleased.
He believes the Loop already has too many fast-food joints competing to feed the lunchtime crowd. The mayor would like to see fewer Taco Bells and McDonald’s and more upscale restaurants to serve the growing population of people who call the Loop home.
But for now, the Loop’s retail economy is based on office workers who usually are in a hurry to get somewhere. So if other types of stores want to catch their attention, Allen Joffe, one of Baum’s principals, has a suggestion: Open stores at 7 a.m., when folks are on their way to work, and keep them open after 5 p.m., when people get off.
“Retailers have to be smarter about how they operate. They need to be open when people have an opportunity to shop,” Joffe says.
Wedding redux: Everything old is new again. The idea of plucking ordinary people off the street and providing them with makeovers and new wardrobes has long been a staple of women’s sections in newspapers and on TV.
Now, the Learning Channel is putting its spin on the age-old Cinderella tale. In a show called “A Makeover Story,” two people are treated to beauty makeovers, complete with new outfits. The camera then follows them as they attend a special event, be it a graduation or fancy party.
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For an episode airing this fall, two Chicago retailers were chosen to outfit a couple from Evanston. Mark Shale recently rigged out Matthew Hoeveler, a computer technician, and Ultimo, the Oak Street boutique, dressed Jennifer Frankfurter, a child development specialist.
The couple were married in September, but never followed through with submitting their marriage license, according to the show’s producers. They discovered the marriage wasn’t valid this year while doing their taxes.
In the segment’s conclusion, guests are invited to a wine-and-cheese party to celebrate the couple’s new looks only to find out that it’s really a surprise wedding to repair the previous oversight.
And after doing their paperwork, they hopefully will live happily ever after.
Down to the wire: Discount stores with empty shelves? Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s vast supply chain disrupted? It’s almost unthinkable.
But that’s the specter the International Mass Retail Association is raising in hopes of getting labor negotiations with West Coast dockworkers back on track.
Their contract expires July 1, and the slow pace of negotiations has the nation’s discounters rattled. Their concern: An estimated 7 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product passes through West Coast ports either as exports or imports from the Far East.
In a letter to the president and Congress, association President Robert Verdisco warns that any labor disruption could be devastating to retailers, who receive much of their back-to-school merchandise during July.
“The stakes could not be higher,” he says.
Don’t want those kids going to school in last year’s T-shirts.
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