BUCKTOWN — An independently-owned optometry office has become the latest venture to set up shop along The 606 in Bucktown.
Located at 1800 N. Milwaukee Ave., at the northwest corner of Bloomingdale and Milwaukee avenues, the new office is owned by optometrist Stevie Young, who lives in Wicker Park and currently works at a chain eye clinic in Lakeview.
Next to a planned pizzeria, The StopAlong, and across from the recently opened Ipsento coffee shop, the 1,800-square-foot optometry office was vacant for several months after its predecessor, an art gallery, closed.
Young said her venture, Sight Optical Co., will offer eye exams and "a lot of cool independent eyewear lines." Sight Optical's targeted opening is in August.
Young said that proximity to the Bloomingdale Trail was a deciding factor, as well as a redeveloped Aldi, which is under construction and will reopen as the anchor retailer to a 95-unit apartment building.
"I had heard rumors that the Aldi would be redone and Northwestern Medicine and a new coffee shop just moved there. A lot more people have come in, with more activity. It looked like a good opportunity," Young said.
Chris Schramko, a real estate broker who helped to rent out the space to Young, said Milwaukee Avenue north of the elevated Bloomingdale Trail has begun to pick up.
"It is becoming a stronger commercial corridor," Schramko said.
A ramp next to the future eye clinic allows people to get up to or down from the 2.7-mile long trail.
About one-half block south, Northwestern Medicine recently opened a 15,000-square-foot primary care and imaging center that abuts the elevated Bloomingdale Trail at the Milwaukee Avenue and Leavitt Street intersection.
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