Southport heads north

by Maureen Wilkey
Chicago

Lisa Santos says that after she opened Southport Grocery in 2003, she had a few periods of time when she was unsure the Southport Corridor would ever take off. But five years later, the corridor is going strong and Santos' grocery store and cafe are right at the heart of the action.
"The demographics are here," Santos says. "And people who live here tend to stay in the neighborhood."
The owner and head chef of Southport Grocery spoke on a panel titled "Retailing on Southport… a tenant's perspective" on July 31. The Southport retail corridor stretches from Roscoe Street to Irving Park Road along Southport Avenue and the adjacent streets in the city's Lakeview neighborhood. Preferred Development hosted the panel as a means of promoting their Southport Collection, three buildings the company is working on developing into high-end retail. Other panelists included Andrea Stamberger from Benefit Cosmetics and Brent Weiss from Uncle Dan's.
Both Benefit and Uncle Dan's have other locations throughout the Chicagoland area, and Stamberger and Weiss agreed that they had been pleased with the early success their stores saw in the Southport Corridor.
"We've only been open two months and we have regulars already," Stamberger says. We get a lot of 'stroller mom' traffic and a huge rush after five every day from people getting off of the brown line."
Weiss's experiences retailing in suburban strip malls paled in comparison to the success he's seen on Southport, and for an unexpected reason. A purveyor of outdoor wear and one of the few men's retailers on the corridor, Uncle Dan's gets a lot of business from foot traffic, Weiss says.
"People asked us, 'Isn't this going to affect the business of your Lincoln Park store?' and really it didn't," Weiss says. "The lack of parking has actually benefited us. People are walking around and they see it and want to come in."
Southport businesses faced a challenge last year when the Southport EL stop was closed for renovations. The retailers banded together to form Southport Neighbors, an organization that promoted local businesses through sending flyers to hotel concierges in the downtown area as well as advertising the area on CTA trains and buses.
"We have a very strong chamber of commerce that realizes that people want to experience different parts of the city," Santos says. "They work together and realize that we can add to the whole by not always bickering with each other."
Boasting strong demographics with more than 70,000 people living within a half-mile and an average household income upwards of $150,000, the corridor has become an attractive investment for developers. Preferred Development is marketing three buildings in the corridor: the 3,000 square foot 3510 North Southport, 8,000 square feet at 3447 North Southport and 15,000 square feet at 3415 North Southport. All three buildings are under development and should be completed by late 2009.

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