A tale of 3 Elgin shopping centers

• Reprints

Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

ELGIN — Forty years ago, McLean Boulevard was the Randall Road of Elgin-area retailing. Within a mile of where the houses ended on the west, it was like a magnet for new stores and their customers, at the expense of the place where everyone had been shopping for the past 130 years — the downtown business district.

Between 1965 and 1985, three big strip shopping centers — Wing Park Manor Shopping Center at McLean and Wing Street, Town & Country Shopping Center just north of Route 20, and Tyler Creek Plaza at McLean and Big Timber Road — set up camp and began pulling in customers by the station wagon load.

Now Randall has become the new “downtown.” And it has been the McLean corridor that struggles to attract shoppers. Although at one time each of those three centers was anchored by a major supermarket, today the northwest corner of Elgin arguably has become a “food desert,” where residents of subdivisions such as Century Oaks have to drive a couple miles to get to the nearest full-scale grocery store. Storefront vacancies soared as stores went under or moved west to Randall.

Old Polk’s City Directories show that at Wing Park Manor, only two of the 18 businesses listed in 1975 still exist. At Town & Country, only two of the 14 live on. At the slightly younger Tyler Creek Plaza, only five of the 23 operating there as recently as 1988 survive. Vacancies account for more than half the space at Wing Park Manor, are rising at Tyler Creek Plaza, and once were a major problem at Town & Country.

Yet the three centers stand in very differing health with very differing strategies.

Town & Country goes Hispanic

By far the healthiest of the three centers today is Town & Country Shopping Center. Anchored originally by a Zayre’s discount store and an Eagle supermarket, the center suffered when both Zayre’s and then Eagle’s parent companies went belly-up. A Menard’s home-improvement store moved into the former Zayre’s space, bringing some stability to the center but not as much customer traffic. And then Menard’s itself moved to Randall Road.

The solution? With Latin immigrants increasingly replacing Anglo residents in the surrounding neighborhoods, the center has found a second wind by aiming at the Hispanic market.

The trend began when the Elgin Mall — sort of a giant flea market of individual thrift shop booths — moved into the former Zayre’s/Menard’s space about eight years ago. It draws a parking lot full of mostly Hispanic shoppers every day, and those shoppers are available to drop into any of the smaller stores.

The former Eagle store was replaced by a new grocery store named Elgin Fresh Market. Though something of a general-purpose supermarket, its thrust can be seen by the aisle devoted to piñatas and the sign plugging “Envios De Dineros.”

Some Anglo businesses remain. Mudd & Eddie’s Pub (formerly The Sports Pub) and Danny’s Pizza have been here since the ’80s. Contour Beauty Salon and the Mustache Cup barbershop go back even further. What for many years was Breslich’s True Value Hardware has been replaced by Aaron’s Furniture-Electronics-Computers-Appliances.

The center also now includes the Elgin Buffet restaurant (one of a surprising number of Oriental restaurants along McLean Boulevard — if you like to eat Chinese, McLean is your street).

But in the area where a religious bookstore and a camera store once stood can now be found offices for a “Dentista” and “Abagados-Lawyers.” It’s not a “Chiropractors Clinic” but “Los Clinica Quiropracticos.” The sign says not “Laundromat” but “Lavendaria.” It’s not “Magnum Insurance” but “Seguros Magnum.” Even Aaron’s has a sign noting “Se Habla Espanol.”

In the mall’s fringes, El Paraiso restaurant is one of the block’s busiest, even though it stands across the street from El Faro’s Restaurant and the Azteca Bakery, and across a driveway from a Taco Bell.

The Hispanic trend has even spread into this neighborhood’s medical world. What used to be a Hollywood Video store at 1460 Larkin Ave. — a half-block west of McLean — is being enlarged and converted into a medical clinic that will be called Central Medical Del Pueblo.

As there are all along McLean now, one can find increasing business litmuses indicating the presence of low-income people. The strip centers across the street from Town & Country include a payday loan store and Personal Finance Co. The mall itself includes a Family Dollar super-discount store, a “Cash Store” and a currency exchange.

Wing Park Manor builds new look and new image

Erected in the 1960s by legendary Elgin grocery merchant Richard Gromer, with the largest Gromer Supermarket as its main anchor, Wing Park Manor Shopping Center has become the hardest-hit of these three. Gromer went out of business in the 1990s, and his shopping center never really recovered.

The enormous former Gromer space was carved into chewable pieces, with the front parts becoming a Blockbuster Video store and (another) Family Dollar store. Rear sections that once held Gromer’s offices and warehouse were occupied by businesses such as Big Apple Bagels.

But none came close to replacing the constant traffic that Gromer’s drew. Stores began to close up. The biggest blow came last year when Blockbuster fell victim to the same video-renting revolution that had done in Hollywood Video. The center now has 11 vacancies.

The stores that remain include All-American Cash Advance, American General Finance, Big D’s Tops and Bottoms, and the Reruns Too thrift shop.

The longstanding Wing Park Manor Barbershop and Little Caesar’s Pizza live on. But original standbys such as Elm’s Hardware, Kolberg’s Jewelry, Pied Piper Tobacco and B&L Rod and Gun have become just memories.

However, DLC Management of Oak Brook, which took over Wing Park Manor, was not about to let it die of neglect. The company has announced that a new anchor tenant, Walgreens, will move into the former Blockbuster. And the entire center is being rebuilt and redesigned.

The rear-most buildings, along little-traveled Weston Avenue, will be torn down, allowing parking spaces to be created all around the center. Big Apple Bagels will move to a more visible spot at the front of the center.

Ironically, Wing Park Manor included a small Walgreens drugstore way back in the 1970s. Walgreens moved away to find bigger, more modern quarters several blocks to the north. Now the drugstore is coming back to rent even bigger quarters.

Problems at Tyler Creek Plaza

The main thing growing at Tyler Creek Plaza seems to be problems.

Originally anchored by another Eagle, the center prospered during the 1980s and 1990s but was walloped by a drop in traffic when the Eagle chain closed eight years ago.

For five years, the anchor space stood empty. Finally, about three years ago, a Home Plus store moved in. But it attracts a small number of customers compared to the thousands who would visit a grocery store.

As a result, Donna Kroc says, she plans to either close or move her Donna’s Cards & Gifts store, whose ample 3,300 square feet offer everything from greeting cards to stuffed bears to collectible knickknacks to leather goods.

“This store has been here since Tyler Creek Plaza opened 25 years ago,” Kroc said. “For 15 years it was Lori’s Hallmark, and then I took over 10 years ago. Two years later, the Eagle closed.”

“We all prayed for five years that the management company (Key Investment Co. of Lombard) would find another grocery store to go in there, but they couldn’t,” Kroc said. “It’s not just women who shop at a store like ours, but we attract more women than men, and that’s not who goes to a Home Plus store.”

The number of vacancies hasn’t nearly approached the level at Wing Park Manor, but it’s rising, Kroc said. The big Scrapbooking Lodge – another business that depended mainly on women — closed a couple of years ago. Chiropractor and physical therapist offices moved out just last month.

Some general-interest businesses remain, such as First Community Bank, Jenny the Groomer, a veterinary eye doctor, A Glass Act, a uniform store, and a martial arts studio. But as at Town & Country, many of the newer stores appeal to a Hispanic or low-income clientele, including Cortes Beauty Shop (“para toda familia”), Dolce Vida Bakery, Amigo Auto Repair and De La Rosa’s Mexican Food Market.

Sociologists might consider this neighborhood a food desert because of the lack of mainstream grocery stores. But the area is overflowing with fast-food places. Within a block can be found Dairy Queen, Subway, McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Popeye’s — plus several sit-down eateries including another El Faro’s, and, of course, another Chinese place.