Grocery stores on the South Side and the perils of anti-transit thinking
When Dominick's, one of Chicago area's long-time grocery chains, closed down, most of the former locations were snapped up by rival stores - Mariano's, Jewel-Osco, etc. But there was one notable, glaring exception - the Dominick's location at the South Shore neighborhood.
Former South Shore Dominick's, as seen in 2014 (photo by Eric Allix Rogers/reallyboring)
The store has been there since the 1920s, when the neighborhood was upper-middle class and white. Since the 1950s, the demographics have shifted - the neighborhood became largely African-American, and while some parts remained middle-class, others became... less so. (I could talk a long time about South Shore's demographic peculiarities - but that's something for another post)
Bottom line is, even as many stores that have been around as long as Dominick's either left or shut down, Donimick's remained. And when the store shut down, nobody seemed interested in taking over the site. The neighborhood was left decent grocery stores - and unfortunately, pretty much all the neighborhoods in its immediate vicinity didn't have any, either.
I've written before about the South Side stigma - how businesses big and small tend to treat every non-white neighborhood south of 35th Street as a crime-ridden ghetto that's not worth investing. It's hard not to see this at work here. Especially after Jewel-Osco took over the Dominick's location on Howard Street, in the largely African-American section of North Side's working-class Rogers Park neighborhood.
Now, DNAinfo Chicago is reporting that Marianno's CEO Bob Marianno said that he wasn't interested in opening a location at that site - though he didn't rule out opening it somewhere else in South Shore.
But what bugs me most isn't that he refused - it's why he refused.
“It’s the location,” Mariano said about passing on the former Dominick’s at Jeffery Plaza, 7131 S. Jeffery Blvd. “It’s not the neighborhood.”
[...]He also said he thinks the parking lot is the wrong size for the 65,000-square-foot store, he believes the entrances and exits to the parking lot don’t serve the store well and he did not like that the Metra tracks passed in front of the store on 71st Street.
“We’re not going to bring a store to the neighborhood that is below the standards of Mariano’s,” Mariano said.
The train tracks in question belong to the South Shore branch of the Metra Electric line, which runs through South Shore roughly once an hour in each direction. The line has been there longer than Dominick's.
Basically, his problem with the site is the parking, parking entrances and exits.. and the presence of public transportation. Or, at least, some public transportation (he doesn't mention the local buses).
This sort of position - emphasis on car-centric amenities and distrust of public transportation - isn't uncommon in American suburbs. I've had plenty of people telling me but with straight face that trains bring crime and drugs to the suburbs. In Chicagoland, some people carved out a weird sort of exemption for Metra, but they remain weary of buses and 'L' trains. I don't really understand this mentality, but I can kind of get why it's there.
But it's a weird perspective for someone who wants to operate grocery stores in the city - especially in a city where thousands of Chicagoans and suburbanites alike rely on Metra and 'L' trains to get around.
When it comes to new businesses, South Shore already has the deck stacked against it. To have car-centric, anti-transit thinking get in the way of a revitalization opportunity is... disheartening.
Former South Shore Dominick's, as seen in 2014 (photo by Eric Allix Rogers/reallyboring)
The store has been there since the 1920s, when the neighborhood was upper-middle class and white. Since the 1950s, the demographics have shifted - the neighborhood became largely African-American, and while some parts remained middle-class, others became... less so. (I could talk a long time about South Shore's demographic peculiarities - but that's something for another post)
Bottom line is, even as many stores that have been around as long as Dominick's either left or shut down, Donimick's remained. And when the store shut down, nobody seemed interested in taking over the site. The neighborhood was left decent grocery stores - and unfortunately, pretty much all the neighborhoods in its immediate vicinity didn't have any, either.
I've written before about the South Side stigma - how businesses big and small tend to treat every non-white neighborhood south of 35th Street as a crime-ridden ghetto that's not worth investing. It's hard not to see this at work here. Especially after Jewel-Osco took over the Dominick's location on Howard Street, in the largely African-American section of North Side's working-class Rogers Park neighborhood.
Now, DNAinfo Chicago is reporting that Marianno's CEO Bob Marianno said that he wasn't interested in opening a location at that site - though he didn't rule out opening it somewhere else in South Shore.
But what bugs me most isn't that he refused - it's why he refused.
“It’s the location,” Mariano said about passing on the former Dominick’s at Jeffery Plaza, 7131 S. Jeffery Blvd. “It’s not the neighborhood.”
[...]He also said he thinks the parking lot is the wrong size for the 65,000-square-foot store, he believes the entrances and exits to the parking lot don’t serve the store well and he did not like that the Metra tracks passed in front of the store on 71st Street.
“We’re not going to bring a store to the neighborhood that is below the standards of Mariano’s,” Mariano said.
The train tracks in question belong to the South Shore branch of the Metra Electric line, which runs through South Shore roughly once an hour in each direction. The line has been there longer than Dominick's.
Basically, his problem with the site is the parking, parking entrances and exits.. and the presence of public transportation. Or, at least, some public transportation (he doesn't mention the local buses).
This sort of position - emphasis on car-centric amenities and distrust of public transportation - isn't uncommon in American suburbs. I've had plenty of people telling me but with straight face that trains bring crime and drugs to the suburbs. In Chicagoland, some people carved out a weird sort of exemption for Metra, but they remain weary of buses and 'L' trains. I don't really understand this mentality, but I can kind of get why it's there.
But it's a weird perspective for someone who wants to operate grocery stores in the city - especially in a city where thousands of Chicagoans and suburbanites alike rely on Metra and 'L' trains to get around.
When it comes to new businesses, South Shore already has the deck stacked against it. To have car-centric, anti-transit thinking get in the way of a revitalization opportunity is... disheartening.