CVS messing with us again

I don't know how many of you got this news today. 

 CVS has announced that they're closing their store at 111th and Western as of 2/21/22. That's one week from Monday. 

That leaves us with the store at 103rd and Longwood, which will get nutty. The parking lot is already awful, even when there aren't a lot of Starbucks customers parking there.  It's one more reason why I don't envy the pharmacists working there and try to be kind to them.

changes in our neighborhood business districts

We're seeing changes in our neighborhood business districts - losses and gains of both independent and chain businesses.

Blossom Boys is gone from 99th and Walden. I've appreciated their mix of merchandise and the love that Steve and Ryan brought to the business. I will miss seeing them on Walden.

Potbelly sandwich shop is leaving the corner it has occupied at 95th and Western for a few years to move across Western to a new space at the revamped Evergreen Plaza. That will leave the recently constructed retail building at 95th and Western without tenants. It has always been an awkward fit on that corner. The location is very car centric, but has a parking lot that is awkward to access due to traffic volume there, with solid backups from the intersection more often than not. It's also a location close enough to home that I don't really want to drive there, while traffic around it doesn't make it very pleasant as a walking or biking destination.

Wild Blossom Meadery will be opening a new tasting room on the eastern edge of Beverly soon.

Ain't She Sweet is opening soon at 99th and Western. I've been enjoying the food at their Bronzeville location on 43rd St. for a few years now and I'm looking forward to their new location in Beverly.

Open Outcry Brewing will open on Western south of County Fair, giving us a second brewpub in the neighborhood.

A few neighborhood businesses have been affected by tax woes. Friends and neighbors saved Cullinan's Stadium Club with a GoFundMe campaign to pay past due taxes. Mt. Greenwood Hardware, a longtime favorite for old house needs, has reopened briefly for a liquidation sale before it's gone forever. Kiddie Kouture is closed. It's unknown whether it will reopen.

Barraco's new catering/event space is under construction on 95th St.  Down the street, the former Borders location was given a new life as an Advocate Health clinic for seniors.

Laine's Bake Shop's new storefront in Morgan Park has gotten off to a good start. I love their peach cobbler and other delicious treats.

I'm curious to see what other changes come to our neighborhood business districts in 2017.

a glass half full

As demolition has progressed on the block of storefronts just west of the 95th St. Metra station, I've noticed something unexpected. It appears that the shell of the easternmost storefront is being reused and not demolished.

While I wish we hadn't lost the remainder of that block, I appreciate the fact that the developer is retaining a facade that fits in with its surroundings rather than plunking down an ugly concrete block structure - what we probably would have gotten otherwise.

Esthetically and environmentally it's a glass half full. This means less material that would have gone into a landfill and fewer emissions from equipment that would have been used in demolishing this structure and constructing a new one. The end result is likely to be more attractive. Bonus - we won't be looking at a parking lot while waiting on the Metra platform.

BAPA survey on neighborhood business districts

Have you taken the BAPA survey about our 19th ward business districts?  If not, please do.

Most businesses on 95th and on Western can be reached by bike with a little creative navigation and many can be reached by walking, some of them quite easily. Getting across on 111th to destinations in Mt. Greenwood would be so much easier if we had bike lanes from about Washtenaw to Albany. Speeding drivers are a major problem there. Kedzie is even worse, because too many drivers try to run cyclists off the road there.  Even though Mt. Greenwood businesses there do have bike racks, I won't put them on the list due to the hazard of Mt. Greenwood drivers.

We've got plenty of bike friendly places to eat and drink in the neighborhood. If Cafe 103 was still around, I would have included them in the list. Jimmy Jamm is easy to walk to, and I hope the city will give us a bike rack there.

Bike groups do tours all over the city. When they hear about good restaurants in areas that interest them, they come. If they have good experiences, they tell their friends and they come back again. Neighborhood business districts in many parts of the city have learned this lesson. Why can't ours?

Top Notch
Hardboiled Coffee
Ellie's Cafe
Rainbow Cone
Calabria
Horse Thief Hollow
Kingston's
Iona's
Beverly Bakery & Cafe
Janson's
Markland Hubbard

Saturday morning at Ellie's

Businesses around 99th & Walden make their pedestrian friendly locations inviting. While sidewalk space along Walden is too tight for bike racks, having racks just around the corner on 99th works pretty well.  I really miss Blue Moon and wish we had a lunch and dinner cafe at that intersection.

Here's my list of biggest frustrations with our neighborhood restaurant offerings:

* not enough quality places open for dinner or on Sundays
* not enough non-Italian ethnic choices
* not enough variety in types of food offered (too much emphasis on pizza, sandwiches, burgers and not enough other choices)

There's so much untapped potential here.  Has there ever been any thought about doing an incentive program for building owners on 95th to improve the appearance of their buildings? Are there other long-term issues about the buildings themselves that have made them unattractive to mid-level businesses? Does anyone have an answer as to why the street level retail space in the new 103rd St. residential building east of the Metra tracks is still vacant? Is it an issue of rents that are too high for the neighborhood?

We've got a lot of good independent businesses in the ward that are worth supporting. Independents help give our business districts a unique character and make those areas destinations - for folks in the ward and from other parts of the city.  Let's give them our support and try to get more of them to fill the abundance of vacant storefronts.

coming soon....

A new cafe at 99th and Walden...



I wish this wasn't an April Fools joke.  I'd really love to see a cafe in this vacant commercial space - Greek, Lebanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, or some other ethnicity that's NOT currently represented in the neighborhood, preferably with some healthy meal options (something that's also in short supply in our 'hood). 

We don't need another pizza or sandwich place.  An affordable little lunch and dinner spot offering something that we can't get in the neighborhood would be ideal.  Perhaps they could make an arrangement with the all day Montessori across the street to share their parking lot on evenings and weekends. And bike racks, yes, bike racks...

Who else shares this dream?

snow far not quite snow good

Last night when I was walking home from the Metra station, I followed 95th St., hoping that the sidewalk would be reasonably walkable. All was good until I got to the bus stop in front of the Trinity community center.  From both directions, snow was decently plowed.  That plowing stopped just short of the bus stop, and the plow guy was so considerate in blocking access to the bus stop with a wall of snow. 

By what stretch of the imagination is it acceptable to treat our bus stops as snow dumps and bus passengers as second class citizens?  This has been a consistent problem and it needs to stop now.

a perspective on retail development, traffic and the 19th ward

For months, a years-old sustainable transportation graphic has been generating a lot of discussion about road use, specifically about how much road space each mode of transportation takes to move a person - car vs. bus vs. bike. In case you haven't seen it, I've included it below.

The Northwestern student news site ran a well written article about the graphic and response to it. When I visit 19th ward businesses, I am often struck by the limitations that parking and car dependence create for so many of those businesses.

Many locations along Western, 95th, 103rd (west of Western) and 111th (west of Western) and Kedzie aren't the easiest to reach by biking or walking, unless you're coming from an adjacent side street.  Western has a good number of bike racks.  Some of the other locations listed above are not as well equipped with suitable bike parking.

As traffic gets worse with the redevelopment of Evergreen Plaza and the 91st and Western nightmare (if and when it's built), it will certainly have an impact on our business districts, especially along 95th and Western.  If we start working now to promote walking and bike access to neighborhood destinations (more bike parking, education, promotions), it can help our local businesses by taking more cars off the roads for trips to nearby destinations.  This would ease traffic congestion and parking demand, allowing our businesses to serve more customers with fewer car trips, without needing more car parking spaces.

If we start working to improve conditions for pedestrians, it can help people using all types of transportation to reach our local businesses.  Right now it can be a life threatening proposition to cross one of our major streets at a non-stoplight intersection.  In spite of the Illinois law passed 2 years ago, things have not gotten any better for pedestrians in most locations.  The video in this news story illustrates the problem well.

I can wait a minute or more to cross half of 95th or Western and wait again to cross the other half, being passed by a dozen or more cars on each half, who could have allowed me to cross by easing off on the gas pedal for just a few seconds.   This doesn't just affect people walking or riding bikes.  It also affects people arriving by car who need to cross the street from where they parked to the business they are visiting.

The redevelopment proposal for Evergreen Plaza (shown below) appears to be a typical suburban car-centric design, uninviting and hazardous for pedestrian or bike access, as well as ugly.

As presented, this design does not appear to offer any accommodation for pedestrians crossing the parking lot from Western.  It's unclear if there's any pedestrian access from the stoplight at 98th St. or from Campbell.  To reduce car traffic congestion, there should be pedestrian access from ALL sides of the redeveloped mall.  Do you have a problem with this car-centric design?  I do, and I'm writing to the developer to ask for safe pedestrian and bike access. 

If it's built according to this sketch, it's unlikely that I'll be able to walk there easily.  I refuse to drive to a place so close to home if all I'm doing is visiting Carson's to buy something I can easily carry.  I refuse to add to our area's traffic congestion with an unnecessary car trip.  I am telling the developer that I will not patronize any business at the redeveloped Evergreen Plaza unless it's built to allow safe pedestrian access from adjoining neighborhoods.  If we can and do walk there, the traffic impact of the redevelopment could be significantly reduced.  If this issue matters to you, I encourage you to write to the developer.  Contact info via email and snail mail is on this page.

We can each make a difference by choosing to walk or ride bikes to existing businesses, and by asking for new businesses to safely accommodate customers and employees who choose to get there by methods of transportation other than individual cars.  We may or may not have a say in what gets built, but each of our choices can affect the overall impact of these projects.

opening up

For those of you who have been wondering if and when Pizzeria Deepo would ever open its doors on 99th St., today's the day. They're offering deep dish pizza samples between noon and 2 p.m. You can check it out at 1742 W. 99th St. (773) 840-3087. They'll be BYOB, too.

Borders on 95th Street

This week we got the disappointing news that the Borders bookstore chain has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. They plan to close many stores, including our 95th Street store. According to their web site, they intend to close the store by the end of April at the latest.

This will leave only two of their stores open in the city: Borders on State St. and Walden Books on Madison.

Our neighborhood store has been a big piece of the 95th Street business district for the past several years. If they do close it, this will be a big loss to the neighborhood. So many people from our neighborhood and nearby areas have enjoyed coming there in search of new books, music and videos, and visiting over coffee. It's a favorite destination for many local children.

If you'd like to speak up in favor of the store remaining open, the first thing to do is spend some money there. That will make the biggest difference. You can also make your voice heard by writing to Michael Edwards (President and CEO of Borders) and to Mary Davis (PR Manager of Borders).

There are two Facebook pages to support the cause: BAPA's Keep Beverly Borders Open page and a Facebook group with the same goal.

Speak up now - with your $$ and your words. It could make a difference.