It's an Illinois-Michigan Canal town that later became an oil town until Texaco shut down its refinery there in 1981. Lockport's ambience is early Industrial Revolution. "If Geneva has an anchor, it is because of our ambience," added Rosenthal, who furnishes the Little Traveler with antiques, all for sale. Then people began filling in between them." So Sol began to develop (a complex of specialty clothing) shops at the other end of Third Street.
"The small towns couldn't keep pace with the shopping centers. "Geneva emerged as a niche around the early 1970s," said Alvin Rosenthal, who with Michael Simon still runs the store. "In those days Geneva wasn't a whole lot different than other towns built around railroads, except that there was this neat little store on one of the side streets," said Michael Simon, who followed his late father in the business. Although the store was developed by Kate Raftrey in her home beginning in 1922, it had fallen on hard times by 1971 when Sol Simon, a local merchant who owned some specialty clothing stores a few blocks to the north, was talked into buying it. What Geneva has going for it, ambience-wise, are hills, trees, some Victorian buildings and the Little Traveler, probably the best-known niche store and gift shop in Chicagoland.
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Long Grove enacted a building code that limited retail stores to 5,000 square feet and appointed an architectural review board to make sure new buildings did look old. Local governments bought up the available land surrounding the crossroads for schools and parks to insure the retail district could not grow too large. "It began to pick up steam in the 1950s, and by 1960 we realized that if steps were not taken it might cease to be a quaint little crossroads," said Coffin. The suburb of 4,740 gets about half its income from the crossroads, which is one reason it has been extremely protective of that retail district. Rediscovered after World War II as a rural crossroads of four abandoned buildings, Long Grove built a covered bridge in 1972 to enhance its historic image and possibly create the illusion that Buffalo Creek is a more substantial body of water than it really is. That comes to $217 per square foot, 35 percent more than the $160.94 average for all discount stores in the United States that year, as published in Discount Merchandiser, the industry trade publication.Īrchitecture, history or nostalgia, trees, hills, a rustic setting and water seem to the major factors in ambience, although much of Long Grove was built new to look old, admits former village President Robert Parker Coffin, an architect. The crossroads area of Long Grove-which collectively encompasses about 110,000 square feet of retail space, the size of one large discount superstore-produced an estimated $23.9 million in retail sales last year, based on state tax records. Long Grove illustrates the financial appeal of niches. But in the end, local government must use its codes to provide protection.
Maybe the most important factor is an astute merchant or developer who gets the ball rolling. If there is a common denominator to these success stories-those that draw shoppers from far beyond their borders-it is probably what, for lack of a better word, is called "ambience," according to merchants, consultants and local officials. Schaumburg and Hanover Park unsuccessfully tried to redevelop what had once been rural crossroads. Wheaton probably foreclosed on its efforts to save its downtown by allowing an upscale mall of national specialty stores, Town Square, to be built on its southern border.
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