Keeping a Foothold: Miroballi Shoes Plans to Stay in Orland Park

Dan Miroballi likened his family business’ approach to an old barber joke.

“A cut-rate barbershop opens up across the street from a full-service place,” he said. “People ask the full-service guy if he’ll lower his prices and he says no. Instead, he puts a sign out front that says, ‘We’ll fix $9 haircuts.’

“That’s what we do.”

While big box stores and shoe outlets proliferated in the last three decades, Miroballi Shoes stayed focused on taking time with customers.

When competitors’ prices dropped, Miroballi Shoes made sure staff members could fill shoe prescriptions written by podiatrists.

When the notion of service was whittled down by some stores to a greeting at a large sliding door, Miroballi Shoes continued to use the raise-your-own-level-of-quality Harry Friedman approach to sales.

“Repeat customers are the lifeblood of our businesses,” Miroballi said while sitting in the store, a 15-year staple in Orland Plaza. “Forty to 50 percent I’d say are repeat customers here, and that’s over years. The biggest thing is price seems to try to substitute service and fit. So then all we do is correct problems incurred because people weren’t fit properly.”

But beneath an ethos of quality—sadly considered old-fashioned by some—lies an evolving business with a sense for survival amid growing obstacles for private-owned retail. Starting with a store in Beverly, followed by one in Flossmoor and a spot in Orland Square Mall, Miroballi Shoes expanded to 17 stores under different brands and styles in the 1980s. In time, they found a niche wherein fewer stores made the operation more profitable and sustainable, with one other Miroballi Shoes in Wheaton and three New Balance stores, in Naperville, South Bend, Ind., and Merrillville, Ind.

Within the next year, the company faces another challenge, as Miroballi Shoes—along with several other businesses—will have to move out of Orland Plaza. The store has spent the last 15 years on the corner of 143^rd Street and LaGrange Road.

On July 11, Orland Park and owners of the plaza officially agreed on a price of $7.5 million to settle years of litigation and circular negotiations, thereby . While much remains to be done to finalize the transfer——Miroballi is making sure the store’s feet stay firmly planted in one of their longtime homes.

“It’s important to know that we are still going to be here and we’re not going anywhere,” Miroballi said. “I wouldn’t trade this place for anything. We’ve been here for 35 years. Why would we change that?”

Specializing in Niche Wear

About 10,000 people lived in Orland Park when the Miroballis first set up shop at the mall, back when LaGrange Road was just two lanes. Leading up to the Orland Park store opening in 1976, Dan Miroballi, along with his brothers Perry and Tony, officially joined father Joe in operating the Beverly and Flossmoor stores after the three finished college. The brothers had been working for their dad since before high school, first in Joe’s repair shop and then in the stores that followed.

Behind every shoe store’s main display area, past the cushioned chairs and walls emblazoned with images of footwear, is an often cavernous array of shelves stocked with shoes of all types. Shoe stores need room, and while the traffic within the Orland Square Mall outpost led to plenty of buyers, the Miroballis wanted more than 1,800 square feet.

“We were crammed in there,” Dan said. “We did good business, but profitability was eroding because of discount stores. But we were able to come into this space, change our collections, and become a more profitable store.”

Throughout the 1980s, the Miroballis dabbled in different shoe collections: high fashion, strictly women’s and even children’s. The experiments didn’t always work. Around when they moved into the 5,000-square-foot space in Orland Plaza, their focus was honed a lot more carefully toward a full-service men’s and women’s shoe store.

“We’re in a niche now—contemporary comfort European footwear,” Dan said. “Those styles really don’t change. It won’t be platforms one year and then backless the next. We’ll have something like that but we’re not in the fast lane like we used to be, which is OK with me because this is more profitable.”

One main aspect never changed: the one-on-one service between sales person and customer, beyond the sizing and placing of shoes on customers’ feet. Miroballi staff members go through a couple of weeks of training before they hit the floor. Foot problems grow more pronounced and painful as people age, so the staff members are trained to find possible corrections. The result is repeat customers.  

“We have three podorathists on staff,” Dan said. “They don’t diagnose, which is what a podiatrist does, but they can fill prescriptions and can recommend footwear. We do have an older clientele who need the most help, and we’re very happy to fill that role.”

A flat-footed man with wider feet than most non-custom shoes can accommodate was directed by a salesman about two weeks ago at the store to a pair of Clark’s, made with a slight bump in the arch and extra sole cushioning.

“Make sure when you walk around, you walk on the non-carpeted area, so you’ll know what it’ll really feel like,” the salesman said.

Clearing the Confusion

The main problem with the lengthy legal battle for ownership of Orland Plaza is “confusion on the part of customers,” Dan said.

“They want to know if you’re going to be here or not,” he said. “They know if there’s a problem with the footwear, they can come back to us. That’s important. But without knowing if we will be here, then that might steer them elsewhere.

“All of these stores will say the same thing. The flower shop deals in the future. Someone comes in and says, ‘I have a wedding in six months. What am I going to do if you’re not here? I’m going to put a deposit down.’ What are we supposed to say?”

Bill and Mike Ryan, attorneys for four plaza tenants, asked the Orland Park trustees and mayor during the July 11 board meeting to add language to the Plaza settlement that would ensure one of two actions: the village would not be able to back out of the agreement, including compensating tenants for the forced exits; or, if they do back out—and legally the village can do so all the way until Feb. 14, 2012—the village would let the tenants stay for at least five months in the plaza after they are paid. 

“(Tenants) are faced with a situation if the village chooses not to buy this land,” Bill Ryan said while addressing the village board during the meeting, before officials went into closed session. “They can’t sign a new lease if the possibility exists that their current home might not be taken.”

While village officials didn’t outright say no, . Mayor Dan McLaughlin said after the meeting that what works for one tenant might not work for another.

Intensive construction to widen 143^rd Street also has taken a toll on business, Dan Miroballi said. The months-long effort has led to a series of traffic redirections, nearby street entrance closures and the added clutter of massive construction vehicles spreading materials across and around the busy LaGrange Road intersection.

“Try to get around out there,” Dan said, pointing south toward a dump truck. “It takes forever.”

The Miroballis haven’t confirmed their new Orland Park location, but they appear to be looking to relocate near their soon-to-be former home.

“We’re not getting mad at anybody,” Dan said. “Get mad at what? You still have to make the best of the situation. Get a (new) location close to where you’re at. Tell customers you will be there and continually service them. And get as much as you can out of the village.”