By Bob Seidenberg
rseiden914@gmail.com
Evanston Economic Development Committee members showed interest last week in a plan to recruit businesses to fill empty storefronts, taking advantage of new search tools that would allow them to find businesses that might be a good fit.
“A lot of what drives our concerns about vacancy isn’t really about, ‘Why don’t we have more retail?’” Paul Zalmezak, the city’s economic development manager, maintained during a spirited discussion at the committee’s Feb. 26 meeting.
Rather, he said his concern lies with questions like “Why don’t we have more choices? How do we fill those vacant storefronts with uses that we want — not just filling them?”
Fifth Ward Councilmember Bobby Burns, the committee’s chair, and other committee members expressed interest last year in using more online tools for business development after hearing a presentation from Gina Speckman, the executive director of the North Shore Convention & Visitors Bureau. Speckman said her group has drawn on data showing where shoppers go after they leave Evanston to better pinpoint what businesses and services might keep them in town longer.
With such tools in hand, Burns suggested, “we can figure out where people are going when they’re leaving Evanston and what they’re purchasing. There’s so much data available for us to make educated decisions about what we want to attract. And it’s not just knocking on doors in Southport [a business district in Chicago with fashion brands like Madewell, Anthropologie and lululemon]. It’s developing a proposal based on evidence and data and identifying people that we want to have conversations with.”
The city is already “doing a decent job — and maybe even a good job,” at business retention, he said, referencing staff’s end-of-the-year report showing that 77 businesses opened their doors in the city in 2024 compared to 22 that closed. (A number of the businesses that opened were home-based.)
“That’s something to be proud of,” Burns said.
Yet, on the other hand, as someone who also heads the Minority, Women, Disadvantage and Evanston Business Enterprises Development Committee, “I don’t know what our strategy is to grow economically in this city,” he said.
“I know we’re for placemaking [staging special events and other activities emphasizing the attractiveness of individual districts] to aid retention, but what else are we doing to really back bring back our downwtown in ways that it hasn’t been, not just before COVID, but for decades?”
Storefront vacancies the most visible
City officials reported last year that the office vacancy rate in Evanston had hit its highest point since the years after the 2008 recession.
The rate has eased somewhat since then, with 21% of leasable office space still empty, according to figures from the CoStar Group that the city presented at the meeting.
Retail vacancy rates were also at their highest in years last summer, reaching 17%.
“It’s 9% right now,” Zalmezak reported at the Feb. 26 meeting. “How can that be?Because it feels like there’s so many vacancies. What we’re not really seeing in this data is how many vacant storefronts there are.”
When the luxury Life Time gym signs a lease, he explained, “you realize that the [overall] retail vacancy rate just went down, because this is a 50,000-60,000 square-foot lease.”
But a number of 10,000-square-foot storefronts are still vacant.
Should the city post those sites as vacant, including the address and the landlord … “to really encourage those certain landlords to step it up?” Zalmezak asked.
Until now, officials have adhered to standard advice in economic development circles, devoting 80% of resources toward retention, he told committee members.
Putting Zoomers to work
Committee members offered a number of suggestions in a discussion on strategies to boost economic development going forward.
Renee Feldman, an at-large business district representative on the committee and owner of a hair salon, suggested the city step up its social media strategy to greater highlight positive developments in the business community. Feldman said she only heard about the new Taco Bell on Sherman Avenue downtown because her kids saw social media advertising about it.
What would happen, she asked, if the city were to assemble “a little team of ‘Zoomers’ with the job of creating social content.”
“I wish I could post some photos on Evanston Thrives [focusing on business developments], but I’m so busy doing all my work and doing my bills and looking at the numbers and promoting myself,” she said about the need for such a service.
Burns spoke of a recent visit to Evanston Labs, the new 10-story Space Age-looking office and laboratory building at 710 Clark St., one of the few major buildings to go up since the pandemic.
Talking to some of the building’s new tenants during the tour, he learned that, because of the nature of their work, they have to be in the office most days of the week.
It’s possible the city could have predicted that, he said. “And the question is, what other industries are like that? Can we attract to Evanston as opposed to waiting for them to decide that Evanston is the right place for them?”
Taxes leave a sour taste for downtown visitors
First Ward Councilmember Clare Kelly encouraged city staff to look at the big picture to create ideal conditions for prospective tenants.
That includes examining the city’s parking program, according to Kelly, and looking at burdensome leases that require some businesses to cover at least a portion of property taxes in addition to rent and utilities.
She also mentioned “doubling down” on the city’s Public Works Agency and prioritizing public works projects that could impact businesses.
Kelly also referred to a letter she had received from a visitor to a downtown restaurant in January, complaining of the taxes his party incurred on the outing: $31 for liquor and $22 for food.
“We drive from Winnetka because we love your choices of restaurants. La Tour, Koi, Campagnola, The Barn, to name a few. This tax situation will seriously have us rethink dining in Evanston when we have Highwood, Wilmette and Winnetka closer … and cheaper tax-wise,” he wrote in the email.
“I hope you, the other Alderpeople, and the powers that make these decision(s) rethink this silly tax burden, if you want people to come and enjoy your great city.”
Play to your strengths
Councilmember Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th Ward) asked committee member Angela Shaffer, the executive director of the Central Street Business Association, what she thought was the right balance of attraction versus retention in the Special Service Area (SSA) that she manages.
“I think we have to really look at what are we good at?” said Shaffer about her message to prospective businesses. “I make sure they can see, ‘Here’s what we’re doing; here’s our numbers. This is what you get when you move into an SSA district.’”
Another piece, she recommended, is conducting exit interviews when businesses leave so the city can collect data on different people’s experience.
Andy Vick, the executive director of Downtown Evanston, the city’s first SSA, suggested that in recruiting businesses, “you need incentives — and that means that the City Council has to take a make a decision to allocate a lot more money to economic development if you want economic development to take that kind of a proactive approach.
“And without those dollars, you don’t have the incentives to attract the businesses that you want. You can’t expect economic development as it is currently funded to take that kind of work on without the resources.”
Determining what you want to do first
Committee member Lisa Dziekan stressed the importance of creating the right conditions for businesses before relying on data, and leveraging assets the city already has, using Evanston Labs as an example.
“Some of the placemaking, the outdoor dining, all of those things that clean it up, bring it up, create a place for businesses to come to,” she said.
Wilmette, frequently cited during the meeting, put the infrastructure necessary to attract new businesses in place when it revitalized its downtown area, according to Dziekan.
Similarly, “I think what’s happening in Independence Park [which is being renovated] will create a place where people will want to come,” she said. “So I would caution that we don’t just chase data out there, but really [come to an] understanding of what we’re trying to do.”
