FEATURE ARTICLE, MAY 2010

METRAMARKET OPENS TO SUCCESS
Chicago’s MetraMarket — after years of anticipation — opens to crowds.
Randy Shearin

As any long-time developer will tell you, some projects are just meant to be. They may take a long time, but if you stay the course, one day you’ll see it through. For Chicago-based U.S. Equities Realty, there have been times in the past 10 years that executives didn’t think they would see the day when their MetraMarket project would open. But, in late 2009, the day finally came when MetraMarket opened its doors.

“It was the toughest project we’ve ever worked on,” summarizes Bob Wislow, chairman and CEO of U.S. Equities.

The conversion of about 100,000 square feet of dormant space in Chicago’s Ogilvie Transportation Center to retail use was first envisioned — in the mid-1990s — as a new destination hub in the city filled with a variety of restaurants all anchored around an authentic fresh food market, similar to the Ferry Market Building in San Francisco, Reading Terminal in Philadelphia and Chelsea Market in New York City. The true inspiration for MetraMarket, which covers two entire city blocks in Chicago’s West Loop and incorporates three street viaducts, was the famous Avenida Nueve de Julio in bustling Buenos Aires. 

Sharing this vision with MetraMarket’s landlord, Metra, is how U.S. Equities originally won the RFP to develop the project in 1999. By the time things started going, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, happened, and retail leasing halted. When U.S. Equities picked up the project again in 2002, financing was slow, so the company began working on tax increment financing to get the project built. That took several years to negotiate. Then it secured letters of intent with two key tenants: CVS/Pharmacy signed on to lease 14,000 square feet and Chicago French Market, which would be the city’s first year-round, open 6 days a week market featuring dozens of individual vendors, signed a 15,000-square-foot lease. Once it had those in place, U.S. Equities was able to sign the deal for the financing. The loan was signed in August 2008, just before the capital markets shutdown. 

CVS/Pharmacy provided the development with a major credit tenant and was the first retailer to open. U.S. Equities also leased space to Lavazza, the Italian coffee retailer, who opened its new concept café at MetraMarket, known as Espression by Lavazza, only the third in the country.

As MetraMarket’s anchor tenant, Chicago French Market would also be a place where local Chicago area food and produce purveyors could showcase their goods with stalls in the market. The trend toward eating foods grown locally was a major impetus behind the market, which was developed by U.S. Equities and the Bensidoun family, who operates more than 100 indoor and outdoor markets in the U.S. and Europe, including more than 10 in the Chicago area. The family operates some of Paris’ most popular markets, giving Chicago French Market the cache of being a true French market.

Though the market concept was in place, the big challenge was to fill and lease the market stalls to individual vendors — a tedious process of locating and leasing to small tenants. U.S. Equities and the Bensidoun family scoured the area looking to bring the best purveyors and sellers to fill the space. These vendors, comprised of small business owners, entrepreneurs and family businesses, cited the commuters as a way to expose their goods to the entire Chicagoland market with a single central location. Despite the economy, Chicago French Market was 88 percent pre-leased, and it has been swamped with customers since then. Today Chicago, French Market is over 95 percent leased.

“Chicago French Market has been a smashing success,” said Wislow. “Chicago was probably the only global city that didn’t have a market like this. The dream was to create a market with individual vendors of a unique nature, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Chicago French Market features purveyors who specialize in goods like farm-raised meats, local and organic vegetables and fruits, cheese, chocolates flowers, soaps and baked goods. A number of prepared food stalls are also part of Chicago French Market, with Mexican, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, French and Dutch among the menus represented. In all, there are about 30 vendors at the Market.

During the 10 years that the MetraMarket development was on the table, the surrounding residential market exploded. An estimated 41,000 people live within a half-mile of the project. The office population also increased to 500,000 within a half-mile of the area, with a number of new towers opening during the past 6 years. This is not to mention the 110,000 rail commuters use the Ogilvie complex daily.

The space where MetraMarket is formerly was used to store railroad equipment, and acted as a neighborhood divider. When MetraMarket opened, it effectively took the wall down. “All of the development that occurred in the area had no increase in retail services,” says Wislow. “There was no community around the area because this wall separated everything. Our opportunity was to make the wall go away by creating a retail base that serviced all of the markets.”

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