Pete's manager spells out timeline

Seattle's Best coffee shop to neighbor grocer, looking for four more businesses

06/29/2011 10:00 PM

By BEN MEYERSON
Editor

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Pete's Fresh Market, the new grocery store slated to anchor the Near West Side at Madison Street and Western Avenue, is hoping to break ground by the end of August or the beginning of September, the store’s manager and Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) said Monday.

The grocery store’s manager, Charles Poulikis, told a community meeting of the Home Owners of Westtown that if the business begins to build the grocery store this year, they’re hoping to open the store in mid-2012.

“I don’t believe we can open this year,” Poulikis said. “If we start to build this year, we think we can open next year.”

This week, Pete’s is shooting for one of the last things it needs before it gets moving: They’re going to ask a city council committee to give them the rights to an alley on their property so they can build on it.

That’s likely to happen, since Fioretti sits on that committee and is heavily in favor of the project.

Pete’s will take up the vast majority of the space on the new site — 55,000 square feet, according to a July 2010 Chicago Journal article — but the development will also have a strip mall of five smaller shops attached, Poulikis said.

Only one shop has signed on at this point, he said: Seattle’s Best, a coffee chain owned by Starbucks. Originally, another of the shops was slated to be Giordano’s, but the pizza chain’s bankruptcy has made it doubtful that they’ll move in.

At this point, Poulikis said he’s looking for suggestions to fill in the other spaces that’ll neighbor his store.

“We’re going to find the right tenants to serve the community, not just a collection of tenants,” Poulikis said.

When asked if he planned to hire people from the community to run Pete’s, Poulikis — who didn’t seem to speak English as his native language — initially didn’t seem to understand the question and then hedged.

“We’re going to start hiring people 90 days before opening, and we’re going to open the doors to everybody,” Poulikis said. “That’s going to be for the community to decide, not me, if people come ask for a job.”


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By Chicago West Sider from West Side
Posted: 07/01/2011 12:14 PM

I hope this is true. Weren't they supposed to break ground several months ago. I guess if we have to wait for best type of tenants it's worth the wait. No more pawn shops, currency exchanges, fast food joints, or pay day loans.