WICKER PARK — If you are looking for a dress to wear on New Year's Eve, a Division Street boutique is having major markdowns in advance of a closing sale on Sunday.
"About 90 percent of our items are at least 50 percent off; we will have deeper discounts through Sunday," said Clara Pilault, owner of Noir Boutique, 1726 W. Division St.
Pilault opened Noir in 1998. She said her shop's closure was prompted by the the fact her lease was up and her storefront cannot be open during construction of a new residential development.
"We cannot stay during the construction and looked at new spaces in Logan Square and Wicker Park, but are leaning toward Chicago Avenue in Ukrainian Village and hope to be able to reopen somewhere else by March," Pilault said.
Local developer Steve Lipe bought the turn-of-the-century building and lot at 1726-32 W. Division St. for $2 million in October, according to county records.
Lipe is planning to build 13 new apartments, ranging from 445 square feet to 1,155 square feet, above the Noir storefront, as well as construct a new four-story building on the vacant lot next door at 1732 W. Division St.
The new plan will include 5,000 square feet of retail space on the ground level.
A zoning change for the project was approved by the city earlier this month; members of the Wicker Park Committee gave their support for the new development in May, under the condition that the greystone building would not be demolished.
Featuring Classical revival style architecture, the building was designed by architect David Saul Klafter, according to the Chicago Historic Resources Survey, a database that is a basic starting point for assessing a building’s historic or architectural value.
Lipe said on Monday that work on new the new development was scheduled to begin in the spring, depending on when he received a building permit.
The impending construction will also mean that Pinky Nail Chicago, a salon at 1728 W. Division St., will close too, Lipe said, though he added he was unsure when that closure would happen.
John Kordi, Pinky Nail Chicago's owner, said Monday that he was contesting the move and did not want to leave, citing an agreement made with the building's previous owner.
Pinky Nail Chicago opened in September 2009; Lipe said that the nail salon's lease expired last March.
There are no tenants lined up for either space, but Lipe said his firm had "seen a lot of interest" in the new storefronts.
"We are waiting to lease the space until we have a better idea about when we can deliver the remodeled space to a new tenant," Lipe said.
The new plan's 5,000 square feet of retail space can combined or separated into three separate spaces, either two storefronts at 1,500 square feet each in the existing building at 1726-28 W. Division and one at 2,000 square feet in the new addition.
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