Wal-Mart Signs a River North Lease
By Chuck Sudo in News on Jun 17, 2011 9:55PM
Wal-Mart's plans for Chicgo expansion took another step forward this afternoon with the news (via Crain's) that the retailer has signed a lease for a store in the old Pearl Art Supply store at Chicago and Franklin.
Wal-Mart has been looking for a River North location and it's been long suspected they had eyes on the Pearl space. 42nd Ward Ald. Brendan Reilly voiced some opposition to Wal-Mart's interest in his ward, but he said the Pearl space, owned by Joshua Mintzer of Chicago-based Saxony Capital LLC, needs no zoning change or other approvals.
Mintzer confirmed the lease signing to Crain's and Wal-Mart could soon be filing a building permit. We have to say as far as locations go, this one is golden, right off the Brown line and a couple of blocks from the Red Line. If we owned a business we couldn't have chosen a better location.