Many peeps have been quite interested in the development around Roosevelt Collection. Yes, foot traffic has picked up ever since the Kerasotes movie theater opened and the condos-turned-apartments began welcoming tenants. An article from YoChicago in July noted that
95% of Roosevelt Collection was leased and that 85% was occupied. Pretty impressive numbers.
But the biggest and in our opinion most frustrating part of the development has been the lack of news around the retail in this building. Yes, we know about the "1.3 Million square feet" of retail space, but we haven't heard anything else really. Initially we heard retail would open in
summer or fall of 2010. Then in Dec of 2009, we heard retail might open in
late 2010 or early 2011. Last we heard in regard to the retail was in the
YoChicago article from July which said:
The leasing staff still isn’t divulging any information about which retailers will be following Kerasotes into the development’s commercial spaces, except to say that about half of the retail space is under contract, and that occupants are expected to arrive in the next 12 to 18 months.
So 12 to 18 months would mean retail would open sometime between July 2011 and January 2012. Wow, that's still a long time away.
Anyway, enough with the frustrating news. Let's talk about potential. Back in December of last year, we asked readers to post comments about what
they would like to see in this retail space. We got a wide range of 'dream' stores like Crate & Barrel, Trader Joes, Peets, Fox & Obel, CB2, Intelligentsia, American Apparel, Ulta, Sephora, Wishbone, Borders, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dick's Sporting Goods, and so on. Although some of these places seem like a long shot, our fingers are crossed.
Another way to look at this is to see who Centrum Properties has worked with in the past. As you may or may not know, Centrum also built a building on North Avenue called "North Avenue Collection", sound familiar?
Within this building you will find some of the following retailers:
- California Pizza Kitchen
- Gap
- J. Crew
- Banana Republic
- Express
- Victoria's Secret
- Crunch (closed)
- Urban Oasis Spa
As far as we know, all of these retailers have locations on the Magnificent Mile or somewhere up North, but they don't have much representation on the South Side (or State street shopping). We would love to see them come to the Roosevelt Collection. Centrum has also worked on other developments and according to their website other retailers such as Borders, Qdoba, Verizon.
(Image from Centrum Properties Websites)
We couldn't find much on the 
