Trader Joe's plans to come to Lincoln Village in Chicago's North Park neighborhood, alderwoman says

Trader Joe's is planning to open a new location at the Lincoln Village Shopping Center in Chicago's North Park neighborhood, the office of Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th) recently announced.

Silverstein announced last year that a national grocery chain was coming to the ward — which also includes much of the West Ridge or West Rogers Park community across the North Shore Channel. On Friday of last week, Silverstein announced in her ward newsletter that Trader Joe's had officially applied for permits for a new store at Lincoln Village, located along Lincoln Avenue between the North Shore Channel and McCormick Road.

Silverstein noted that bringing in a national grocery chain was one of her top priorities for years, and the 50th Ward community has been calling for a Trader Joe's.

The West Ridge Chamber of Commerce and Community Organization launched a petition in 2020 calling for bringing a Trader Joe's to West Ridge. Reports in Block Club Chicago noted that residents had hoped a Trader Joe's would come to the former Bakers Square site on the southeast corner of Touhy and Western avenues, but a strip mall with a Starbucks, a Buffalo Wild Wings, and an Athletico Physical Therapy office ended up being built at that site.

Silverstein emphasized that the plan for a Trader Joe's in Lincoln Village, while exciting, remains preliminary.

"While this is a major step forward, I want to emphasize that this is still early in the process. The lease is signed and Trader Joe's has begun the permitting stage, but it will take some time before the store is ready to open," Silverstein wrote. "This is a very promising development, but please remember that they have not received all their necessary approvals yet and, as with all large projects, things could change very rapidly."

In a statement emailed to CBS News Chicago, Trader Joe's did not confirm plans to open a new store in Lincoln Village.

"We are actively looking at hundreds of neighborhoods across the country, including a few in the Chicago area, as we hope to open more new neighborhood stores each year," a spokeswoman wrote. "At this time, the only new location we have confirmed in [Illinois] is in Oswego."

The Lincoln Village Shopping Center has been in operation since 1952, published reports noted. In the past, the shopping center was laid out as a pedestrian-friendly open-air mall similar to the Westfield Old Orchard in Skokie, which opened a few years later.

Lincoln Village once featured a Wieboldt's department store, a popular movie theater that later expanded to two buildings, What's Cooking? restaurant, and in later years, Diversions video arcade. The shopping center is currently anchored by a Ross Dress for Less, a Five Below, and a TJ Maxx.

A grocery store at Lincoln Village is far from a new concept, but one must go back in time quite a few years to find one there. A Kroger store is seen in photos dating back to the earliest days of the shopping center, and a National Food Store later took its place.

Perhaps most famously, the grocery store niche at Lincoln Village was occupied by a location of Treasure Island, the upscale Chicago grocery store chain famously called "America's most European supermarket" by Julia Child. Newspaper advertisements show the Treasure Island store was in business at 6125 N. Lincoln Ave. in Lincoln Village at least as far back as 1974.

In 1986, the Treasure Island location closed and became a Happy Foods. By the early 1990s, there was no longer a grocery store in Lincoln Village at all, with the old Treasure Island and Happy Foods site having been taken over by Old Country Buffet.

Treasure Island — which had flagship stores on Broadway in East Lakeview and Wells Street in Old Town, and also had locations in Lincoln Park, the Gold Coast, Streeterville, Hyde Park, Wilmette, and several other communities over the years — went out of business completely in 2018.

Trader Joe's has six locations within the Chicago city limits — at 667 W. Diversey Pkwy. and 1840 N. Clybourn Ave. in Lincoln Park, 3745 N. Lincoln Ave. in North Center, 44 E. Ontario St. in River North, 1147 S. Wabash Ave. in the South Loop, and in the former Treasure Island at 1528 E. 55th St. in Hyde Park.

Plans for another new Trader Joe's were announced in February in the former CVS drug store at 2053 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Logan Square. There are also plans for Trader Joe's stores at 804 W. Montrose Ave. in Uptown and in an apartment tower to be built at 170 N. May St. in the Fulton Market district, Block Club reported.

However, published reports noted that some other plans for Trader Joe's locations — including one in Andersonville — have not worked out.