Crain’s reports that Target has signed a letter of intent for a two-story store at Wilson Yard, the hotly contested parcel under the Red Line tracks in the middle of Uptown. Landmark Theatres has already signed its intent; Target will go below the theaters. Needless to say, the neighbors are worried about traffic, etc., and many wrongly think the result will be a stripmall. Ah well.

My favorite reaction to the endless posts whining about how “we need a posh boutique row just like Andersonville with my favorite retailers, blah blah” comes from a poster named Jeremy:

Ever since Bendel’s left Michigan Avenue I have been at a loss. Crate & Barrel is for street urchins, and the unwashed masses. I know Harrod’s was talking about the block across from Marshall Fields & Co., but to be alone in the Wilson Yards would make them the crown jewel of the neighborhood, and our neighborhood the envy of the Americas. I picture Broadway as the new High Street. And what better place to walk the streets before stopping in for High tea…

I understand everyone has their own “pet” store for Wilson Yard. But until we get Ed Bowie’s underground subway put in, really what is the point? […]

I just don’t buy [a boutique strip] for Broadway, the scale of the street and buildings are not conducive to light retail. Alderman Smith fought with Schiller on this point at one of the early development meetings for the Phoenix — she argued for Big Box retail. The neighborhood was designed as an entertainment district, but live action theatres are almost out of the question, (see the struggling Chicago Theater, downtown theatre district, the shuttered Uptown and the stuggling Riv). I don’t think the ballrooms will return and that pretty much leaves the taverns and speakeasys. We could probably get some more of those. Maybe a movie theatre is on the way. DisneyQuest was a dismal failure, our tourist area is well established. That would leave casinos, and gentlemen’s clubs for us though. Maybe we could approach the alderman about a provisional ward legalization of gambling and prostitution. Pshaw to the secondary effects.

Two important points: first, Target has shown a willingness to adapt its store formats to urban locations; their flagship in downtown Minneapolis is the most obvious example. It sits along Minneapolis’ transit mall, and most customers — as at big boxes and department stores in downtown Chicago — arrive via transit. (Wilson Yard straddles the Red Line.) DPD and Alderman Shiller will make sure that new construction there will respect the existing urban fabric; even if both parties are often known for missing the forest for the trees, they’re not that stupid.

Second, everyone loves small, independent shops — even if many Uptown gentrifiers don’t love the small, independent pawn shops and dollar stores that predominate there and instead long for cute, upscale boutiques like those in Andersonville. However, that’s just unrealistic for this particular site: the developer is up against a wall: building new buildings on literally toxic land, paying for a new parking garage for Truman College (at $30,000 a space) and a new CTA station, and selling the housing at below cost. In order to make the development work at all, there’s got to be big money involved — just to break even on the investment needed to build a new building will require rents far, far higher than small businesses can typically pay. Hence, the scores of new buildings on, say, Lincoln in Lincoln Park have empty shop space at street level (or else mortgage brokers’ or dentists’ offices). Even in a neighborhood which loves boutiques and spawns them by the boatload, the boutiques can’t afford the rent on those spaces.

And Target’s interest in the neighborhood introduces a new potential savior for the Uptown Theatre: conversion to large-format retail. Medinah Temple, after all, is now a Bloomingdale’s. Since the economics of running the theatres as entertainment venues is so weak now, retail conversion — which would save the exteriors and significant interior features — could be a very real possibility in the future.