Anchor opportunities (Part II)

Opportunities in the making: Cheetah Gym

As I wrote previously in One step backwards, two steps forward on Milwaukee Avenue, Cheetah Gym is on again!

Though you can’t see it behind the covered windows, if you walk by the former Grace’s Furniture store building at 2616-2618 N. Milwaukee Avenue you can hear that demolition work has begun toward conversion of the space for a new branch of Chicago-based Cheetah Gym.

Cheetah Gym currently has three Chicago locations: Andersonville, Bucktown (actually in Wicker Park by most definitions), and Edgewater. At 32,000 square feet on six floors (including the basement), Logan Square will be the largest of the gyms.

This promises to bring daily foot traffic to this stretch of Milwaukee Avenue, however I don’t have membership numbers from other locations to quantify it. Hours haven’t yet been set, but likely will be the same as at other locations: Monday – Thursday from 5:00 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

One step backwards, two steps forward on Milwaukee Avenue

Store closing

Last weekend, Food for Less closed its doors. It was a short-lived venture, and there have been probably three other similar dollar stores in the same space in recent years.

To my dismay, the building owners have reinstalled the window grates, once again creating a perception that Milwaukee Avenue is unsafe (see Spring cleaning).

The new “for rent” signs have an Indiana telephone number. I find this interesting because over and over again when I have talked with the business and property owners on Milwaukee Avenue, those that do not live in the neighborhood were surprised that I do live in the neighborhood. They have a perception of the area as not being safe. I’ll grant you that we still have more than our fair share of crime. With Milwaukee Avenue, though, it seems to me a chicken or the egg situation. What comes first: a change in perception or reality?

Anchor opportunities (Part I)

Not without a mooring

The promise of Cheetah Gym has been broken, and [Update: Cheetah Gym is on again! (See One step backwards, two steps forward on Milwaukee Avenue.)] Milwaukee Avenue is drifting (see Without an
anchor), but this stretch of Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square is not without a mooring to make fast an anchor.

The former Grace’s Furniture store at the south end of this stretch is back on the market (rental, at least) (photo, right).

And on the north end of the stretch, the group of buildings on the west side of Milwaukee Avenue that are part of the Chicago Milwaukee-Diversey- Kimball Landmark District, all have vacancies above the first floor (and some on the first floor as well).

Without an anchor

In Milwaukee Avenue’s ebbing tide

What Milwaukee Avenue needs is to weigh anchor, to bring on board an anchor in order to set sail away from its current listing, from its listlessness, from its current downward — or at best stagnant — trend.

Special events, like this past weekend’s Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival and simultaneous sidewalk sale (photos left) can make the neighborhood a destination for a day. That in turn can serve as an introduction to the neighborhood and what it has to offer. A fixed anchor, though, can clear the way for a new direction for Milwaukee Avenue, a rising tide to lift all boats.