Oak Park will lose another of its business icons when Logos, the store for Christian books and gifts, is expected to close for good at the end of the month.
Logos owner Tammy Daugherty-Holzer was hoping for a retail savior, someone to take over the declining business and put time and effort into its resurrection. But the right person couldn’t be found who would buy the business before its lease runs out at 101 N. Oak Park Ave.
Daugherty-Holzer said sales and discounts will increase after Mother’s Day until the end of the month, but no special events are scheduled.
“We hadn’t planned on any great hullabaloo,” she said. “I wasn’t planning a Logos-palooza. … It would be like a funeral.”
The entry barriers for starting a bookstore aren’t very high, and the community needs a Christian bookstore, so Daugherty-Holzer thinks another one could open sometime in the village.
She bought the store in February 2001 from longtime owners Bob and Marietta Walsh, who opened the store in 1976. Retail everywhere has struggled since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Christian bookstores have especially been hit hard by Wal-Mart’s and online retailers’ entry into the market.
Daugherty-Holzer said that Logos could remain viable but needs an owner who can put more time and energy into the store than could she and her husband, who each have full-time corporate jobs and three kids.
Lou Fabbri, one of the owners of the building, said he would like to have seen Logos stay. He had guaranteed the store’s rent, about 15 percent below market, for another year. He’s expecting the rent to rise for a new tenant.
“It’s a hot street,” he said. “I don’t think there’ll be any problem renting that space.”
The roughly 4,200-square-foot space includes two storefronts, but David King, of David King & Associates, will try to rent it again as a single space.
“We’ve had a substantial number of inquiries,” King said, adding that apparel stores and restaurants have looked at the space.
King said much of the interest is explained by the nearby angled parking on North Boulevard, not to mention the nearby Avenue parking garage.
“Forget ‘location, location, location,'” King said. “It’s parking, parking, parking.”
He added that the space would not likely attract a national retailer, most of whom are interested in being near Harlem Avenue and Lake Street, where other national retailers are.
“It’s a herd mentality with national and regional commercial real estate,” he said. Borders, Pier 1, The Gap, Old Navy, and Penzey’s Spices are just some of the national and regional retailers at the corner, not to mention those in the River Forest Town Centers across Harlem.
King said he hopes a new business will open in the Logos space by August or September.
Fabbri said the owners will apply for permits, likely this week, to rehab the upper floors on the North Boulevard side of the building into eight residential condominiums.
CONTACT: dcarter@wjinc.com