SOUTH SHORE — Jeffery Plaza is close to finding a new grocery store after splitting up the vacant Dominick’s space.
Ald. Leslie Hairston said Tuesday at her monthly 5th Ward meeting that the owners of Jeffery Plaza, 2101 E. 71st St., are in lease negotiations with a grocery store to use a portion of the 62,000-square-foot space.
“They will only use half of the space,” Hairston said.
She said Charter Fitness, which has six locations on the Southwest Side of the city, will take another quarter of the space.
Hairston said the owners of Jeffery Plaza, Cannon Commercial, is seeking a children’s clothing store to take the final quarter of the space.
A representative from Cannon Commercial was not immediately available to comment.
“Hopefully we’ll have an opening date soon,” Hairston said.
She said she wasn’t sure what had changed to lure in tenants after the shopping center had so much trouble finding tenants.
Dominick’s closed in December 2013, but held onto its lease on the space for months, complicating the owner’s efforts to find a new tenant.
The owners seemed close to getting a grocer into the space in May of last year, but then the deal fell through in December.
Cannon Commercial seemed ready to wash its hands of the project, putting the plaza up for sale for $19.5 million while Hairston pressed the city to authorize eminent domain to take the shopping center if the owner didn’t find new tenants.
Hairston said Tuesday that she now wasn’t planning to further pursue eminent domain as long as leases continued moving forward.
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