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Free Makeovers This Weekend at New Wicker Park Ulta; Lowe's Coming Next

By Alisa Hauser | September 22, 2015 9:50am
 The new Ulta had a soft opening Friday and will kick off its grand weekend festivities on Sept. 25.
Ulta in Wicker Park Commons Opens
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WICKER PARK — A huge new Ulta in Wicker Park is giving free makeovers this weekend to celebrate the grand opening of the 10,000-square-foot behemoth spot on Ashland.

The new Ulta opened Friday but will kick off its grand opening festivities this weekend, with the free makeovers and freebies offered to the first 100 customers.

Replacing Staples, which closed last year, Wicker Park's Ulta at 1300 N. Ashland Ave. offers shelves stocked with 20,000 beauty products across 550 brands and a full-service salon, according to a news release issued by the Bolingbrook-based chain on Monday.

Ulta Beauty Collection includes cosmetics, skin care, bath/body, hair care and men’s products.

Some brands sold at Ulta include bareMinerals and Benefit cosmetics, Dermalogica and Mario Badescu skin care and Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein fragrances.

The chain operates 817 other retail stores across the U.S, including two others within a few miles: an Ulta at 2754 N. Clybourn Ave. and 1000 W. North Ave., both in Lincoln Park.

"So far, people are saying they are really excited we are here and that this store will be closer for them," said Mike Kelly, the store's operations manager who was onsite Monday.

Also on Monday, Ulta stylist Denise Valero, one of the new store's approximately 30 employees, was straightening hair for a client, Marta Mardosz, in a salon at the back of the store.

Mardosz, who lives in Jefferson Park, had traveled to Wicker Park to get her hair done by Valero, who previously worked at an Ulta at the Harlem/Irving Plaza.

"I follow her," Mardosz said of Valero.

In celebration of its grand opening, the first 100 guests (each day) on Friday, Saturday and Sunday will receive a “beauty treat” valued from $5 to $100 and one free skin or hair service at the in-store salon, the company announced.

Doors are set to open at 10 a.m. Friday and 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

The addition of Ulta to Wicker Park's largest shopping complex is one of several changes that have occurred over the last few years. Staples, Kmart, Oberweis, a family-run Chinese food restaurant and a Blockbuster have all exited the mall.

New tenants such as Pet Supplies Plus, Potbelly and The Vitamin Shoppe have moved into the Wicker Park Commons, which is anchored by a Jewel grocery store. A Lowe's home improvement store, set to replace the shuttered Kmart, is currently under construction and planning to open early next year, a spokeswoman for the Mooresville, N.C.-based chain said on Tuesday.

Centrum Partners, which bought the mall for $33 million in 2011 back when it was called West Town Shopping Plaza, recently sold the 185,000-square-foot retail portion of the mall, Crain's reported in August.

The new Ulta in the Wicker Park Commons. [All photos by DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser]

A makeup station in the new Ulta.

Stylist Denise Valero with client, Marta Mardosz in the store's salon on Monday.  Mardosz, a Jefferson Park resident, followed Valero, who previously worked at an Ulta in Norridge, to her new post.

Alice Richter, a nanny, checks out the new Wicker Park Ulta on Monday with one of two children under her care.

Wicker Park Commons shopping mall tenant sign, updated to reflect Lowe's, not yet open and the new Ulta.

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