Wal-Mart finds site for first North Side store
(Crain's) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has found a site for its first small-box store in Chicago, with a deal to lease about 30,000 square feet in a three-level retail center in the Lakeview neighborhood, according to real estate sources.
The North Side store, which would be a Neighborhood Market focusing on groceries, also would be Wal-Mart's first in an affluent neighborhood in the city. It also would be among the several dozen outlets Wal-Mart has said it plans to open in Chicago over the next five years after emerging from a bruising battle with local unions and Chicago aldermen over employee wages.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based company is negotiating for locations throughout the city and may be poised to announce several sites in coming months, a spokesman says. The retailer in October confirmed its plans to make Chicago a key launching ground as the chain looks to expand with smaller stores in urban settings.
Wal-Mart executives have said its Chicago locations will range from 180,000-square-foot superstores to ones almost as little as convenience stores. The company currently operates just one Chicago store, in Austin on the West Side. Two additional superstore locations have been approved by the City Council, in Pullman and Chatham on the South Side. Those are to open late next year and in early 2012.
In densely populated Lakeview, sources say, Wal-Mart has signed a letter of intent to lease space in a retail building known as Broadway at Surf, at 2840 N. Broadway. The center currently has two larger tenants, Bed Bath & Beyond and T. J. Maxx, as well as a Cost Plus World Market.
A Wal-Mart spokesman said Thursday that the company hasn't finalized any deals in Chicago but confirmed that company real estate executives are familiar with a 30,000-square-foot availability at that property.
The 134,254-square-foot center was developed by a local group that includes principals of Chicago-based Clark Street Development LLC, and is now is owned by the real estate arm of Invesco Ltd. A spokesman for Atlanta-based Invesco declines to comment.
The local alderman, Tom Tunney (44th), said he hadn't heard of the deal, but added that any development must be reviewed.
“This prototype hasn't been seen in the city before, so like any retailer, it will be vetted,” Mr. Tunney said. “It will go through a community process.”
Broadway at Surf is a 12-year-old facility and has three floors of retail space, including a basement level, and a rooftop parking lot for 129 cars, according to marketing brochures. The center has an empty two-level space where a PetSmart store closed. A shuttered Wolf Camera shop is adjacent on the street level.
The 17,606-square-foot PetSmart space is being marketed as available for sublease through May 2018, which suggests the Phoenix-based pet-supply chain is paying rent through that time. Asking rent for that space is listed as $29 per square foot, according to a brochure, which puts annual rent at $510,574.
The Wal-Mart spokesman said that in Chicago the company is chiefly focused on the mid-sized Neighborhood Market stores, which will range from 30,000 square feet to 60,000 square feet. Some of those stores could open as soon as next year, the spokesman said.
(Note: The ownership of the Broadway at Surf property has been corrected.)
