Oswego Officials Join Effort to Fill Vacant Dominick's Stores

OSWEGO, IL - Three years after 72 Dominick’s Finer Foods locations closed their doors in the Chicago area, a handful of those locations are still vacant.

Most of the empty retail spaces were scooped up quickly by grocery competitors like Jewel-Osco, Whole Foods Market and Mariano’s Fresh Market shortly after the Dominick’s locations closed, Crain’s Chicago Business reported early this year.

However, 10 stores — which total 700,000 square feet of retail space — are still empty.

Now, leaders from more than 20 mostly suburban communities impacted by these losses, including Oswego, will be meeting next Thursday, Nov. 10 to discuss what to do next to salvage their local economies despite the uninviting blocks of empty stores.

The vacant 65,636-square-foot Oswego Dominick’s is located at 3010 US Hwy. 34.

“One Call, 10 Stores, a Million Customers” is an advocacy group that consists of 9 communities that banded together in 2014 to land new tenants to occupy those empty retail spaces. With the chunks of dark stores in their communities, the group claims, local economies suffer. Shops that bordered previous Dominick’s locations now get less traffic because there isn’t a big anchor tenant nearby to draw shoppers to their local businesses.

The advocacy group represents 10 stores in the suburban area, including in Barlett, Glendale Heights, Bensenville, Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, North Naperville, Woodridge, Oswego, South Naperville and Romeoville, according to its website. It also provides a coverage map for all 10 locations.

Local officials will be meeting in a public press conference from 1:30-2 p.m. Nov. 10 at Maggiano’s Little Italy in Naperville. The meeting point is located at 1847 Freedom Dr.
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Anicka Slachta (Patch Staff) contributed to this article

Photo courtesy of "One Call, 10 Stores, a Million Customers'" website.