WICKER PARK — Sleepy's has its sights set on putting Wicker Park residents to bed: it plans to open two mattress shops five blocks from each within the next year.
"We believe in a need for our products and services, and that's why we're expanding. Sleep is more important now than ever before," said Sam Khan, regional vice president for Sleepy's Midwest Division.
Based in New York, Sleepy's has 66 locations in the Chicago area with 15 of those in city neighborhoods as of Wednesday. More city stores are planned in the coming weeks and months, Khan said. Two of the chain's stores in the same area is not unprecedented as Gold Coast has a pair of Sleepy's locations.
The two Sleepy's coming to the Wicker Park/Bucktown area are at 1281 N. Milwaukee Ave. in the Wicker Common shopping mall, and at 1940 W. North Ave.
Khan said the shop on Milwaukee Avenue, which replaces a shuttered Payless shoes, will open sometime before the end of October.
Sleepy's sells 19 brands of beds, ranging in price from $99 to $10,000, Khan said.
The second local Sleepy's, which the firm is calling its Bucktown location, will be a two-level shop and anchor the first two floors of a three-story, 8,000-square-foot building which is going to be built at 1942-46 W. North Ave. on the site of a parking lot.
Khan said the two-level Sleepy's is scheduled to open around spring or summer of 2015.
"We believe the market can sustain two mattress shops in the same area and have two stores in the Gold Coast," Khan said.
Larry Powers, vice president of leasing for the Wicker Commons mall, said: "We’re excited to have them."
Mitch Goltz, who is developing the new construction building for which Sleepy's will be the anchor tenant, said "the market is dense enough to handle two."
Ken Lubinski, owner of Lubinski Furniture at 1550 N. Milwaukee Ave., which is about halfway between both new Sleepy's locations and also sells mattress, said he would welcome the added competition.
"My opinion is the more retailers the better. [Sleepy's] has higher-end mattress than what we sell. I like to see a retailer anywhere, it brings more people to the area to shop," Lubinski said.
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