(Source: Chicago Tribune)
By John Byrne, Chicago Tribune
Sept. 10--The stretch of Milwaukee Avenue that runs through Logan Square offers the kind of contradictions frequently found in gentrifying parts of Chicago.
Mixed in among the empty storefronts and a Family Dollar store are a buzz-worthy craft brewery and a bike repair shop that turns out the "fixed gear" rides hipsters moving into the area covet.
As the Northwest Side neighborhood struggles with its identity, plans for a new Walmart on what's now a vacant wholesale grocery store site have become a flash point in the fight over the area's future.
The owner of the building and parking lot at Milwaukee and California avenues has been in talks with the giant retailer about opening a "neighborhood market" store, a smaller outpost with mostly groceries.
But Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno, 1st, has taken steps to block the plan. He recently pushed to rezone the property from retail to manufacturing, which would prevent the company from opening there. In Chicago, aldermen traditionally have almost complete control over zoning issues in their wards.
The alderman insists his beef is with the property's owner, John Burns, and not Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which in recent years has battled unions and their City Council allies to gain a foothold in Chicago.
Moreno acknowledges he has watched Logan Square welcome more of the locally owned businesses that have followed the 20-somethings in skinny jeans northwest from Wicker Park the past several years.
Wal-Mart doesn't exactly match the profile. "I don't think they're a perfect fit for the area, no," Moreno said.
U.S. Census Bureau data show Logan Square's demographic shift. The community is still majority Latino, but that group fell by more than 20,000 from 2000 to 2010. The white population, meanwhile, increased by more than 10,000 during that time. That's in contrast to the trend of Chicago as a whole, whose white population fell the past decade as the number of Latino residents grew.
Moreno's vision is the latest of several attempts to pull the key street out of its decades-long doldrums.
For much of the 20th century, Milwaukee Avenue was a street-side retail bazaar that cut northwest through the North Side. Successive waves of immigrants -- Scandinavians and Germans beginning in the 19th century, later Latinos -- counted on the stores for discount clothing and inexpensive furniture, according to John McDermott, the housing and land use director for the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.
"But those kinds of stores really got hit hard by the big box stores," McDermott said.