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For months we've heard rumors that one of the original Starbucks, located on Rush between Oak and Walton was closing, moving, expanding, or rebranding. Late last week a lease has been signed at a nearby location. As we'll explain to you this move is the latest development of the retail game of musical chairs in the Viagra Triangle.
On our way to Saks the other night, using the 'explore' feature on Foursquare, we saw that Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz was speaking at the Hyatt Regency and filmed a ditty about his new book, Onward inside of the current Rush Street store. To our knowledge, the last time he was hanging out in Chicago was around four years ago at the time the coffee company was remodeling its stores. We wonder - does it take a personal visit from Howard Schultz to get business done and put his stamp of approval onto the papers which hold the future of the Rush Street store?
We now believe, Starbucks corporate location scouts were eyeballing potential spaces on Walton late last year, but Howard's nostalgia of the growth of the brand at a Rush Street address were tugging at his heartstrings. He couldn't bear to see the Rush Street location move to a somewhat less prestigious address on Walton. Therefore, on last week's trip to Chi-town, giving the go-ahead on moving this 932 N Rush flagship location up one block and across the street to 1003 N Rush. The current tenants of the 1003 building are Geneva Seal which will be moving to the vacant Marilyn Miglin space at 112 E Oak on June 1, Nancy Angelair Salon, and now vacated tenant, Lisa's Nail Salon which has relocated to 67 E Oak.
We believe the new store's design will take cues from the environmentally concerned Chicago consumer and reflect Starbucks VP of Global Responsibility, Ben Packard's goals as he has outlined in an interview published today on Triple Pundit. These goals include a recycling program to be launched this week in Chicago and LEED certified stores. The building as it stands now is such a gosh darn fixer-upper being like, a bajillion (80ish) years old, so it would only make sense for Starbucks to re-build the structure according to their new global responsibility standards in the style of the neighborhood.
In the heart of the Gold Coast, as a mecca for the style hungry Midwestern consumer, the Starbucks location #202 was the first store in the third market behind Seattle and Vancouver for the chain to plant roots. This was thanks to the expansion efforts of Howard, who, sought out a prime address in a test market which eventually landed him in the property at 932 N Rush Street. In the process of building the Starbucks name in Chicago, it was also Howard's brainchild to make Hear Music, a national chain of five stores, synonymous with the Starbucks experience. The highly touted Hear Music location (now Aldo) was at one time connected to Starbucks to make one large store. We now believe that because Aldo has not been interested in renewing their lease and when this Starbucks moves, there is a possibility that the two storefronts will once again will be combined and occupied as one retail space.
· Starbucks [Official Site]
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