New Malcolm X College Campus Making the Grade
On the city’s west side, Malcolm X College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago, is getting a whole new syllabus. Not just new classes, but new classrooms. And then some. Directly across Jackson Street from its current location at 226 West Jackson, a new facility is being erected. Construction began in 2014, and is expected to be completed for student use in January 2016, just in time for the spring semester. The $251 million...
Running Into Nike
Our Bucktown Spy sent in this picture of the signs being delivered to the new Nike store opening on Friday at 1640 North Damen in Bucktown. The store recently made waves in the nattering echo chamber that is “social media” because it put up a sign for its running shoe store reading, “We Run Bucktown,” which got some people’s undies in a bundle. Interestingly, another sneaker company, The Finish Line, is...
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, 2012 – Part 17
Tis the season for new spies. After getting a great Christmassy picture from our new Lakeview Spy the other day, we now have one from our new Bucktown Spy. It’s the snowflake decorations along North Damen Avenue, a nice little festive touch for the street which is rapidly becoming a test bed for European retailers that want to test the waters in Middle America without blowing a wad of cash on a fancy Oak Street address. If...
First Look: Flagship Walgreens Inside Historic Noel State Bank Building
One of Chicagoland’s most prominent retailers has cleaned up one of Chicago’s grossest corners. The new Walgreens flagship store opens tomorrow (November 21, 2012) at the corner of West North Avenue and North Damen Avenue in Bucktown. It is right on the border of Bucktown and Wicker Park, a fact acknowledged in the standards flying from the facade. The new drug store is in Gardner Coughlen’s old Noel State Bank building, a city...
Status Update: Bucktown’s Flagship Walgreen’s
A few years ago, Walgreens started rolling out a fleet of new “flagship” stores. Not surprisingly one of them landed in The Loop. The second one is going to open in Bucktown next month. It’s being built inside the landmark Noel State Bank Building (1601 North Milwaukee Avenue) on the corner of North Damen and North Milwaukee Avenues. A reader sent in some construction pictures showing the inside of the building about...
French Parfumeur Wafts Into Damen Avenue
Ordinarily we would put this in the Chicago Retail and Restaurant News section of the form, but we had such an overwhelming response to our recent insider photos of the new Burberry flagship store on Michigan Avenue that we thought we’d present it here. Parisian olfactory tickler Diptyque (“dip-teek”) is opening a store at 1645 North Damen Avenue in Bucktown, and we have the first renderings of what the store will...