LAKEVIEW — Target will replace the Whole Foods at 3300 N. Ashland Ave. after the grocery chain vacates in March to move into its massive new home two blocks south, according to Target representatives.
The Target will be one of the company's flexible format stores and is expected to open in October, three months after the first Lakeview Target will open at 3200 N. Clark St.
On Ashland, Target will offer select clothing, apartment and condo-centric decor, health and beauty products, toys, sporting goods and a CVS Pharmacy.
"We think the community will enjoy the convenience of a quick-trip shopping experience," said Mark Schindele, a Target senior vice president. "We look forward to serving even more guests with the addition of Target's Chicago Lakeview Ashland store."
The flexible format stores are also found in Lincoln Park, Streeterville and Hyde Park, with the first of their kind in Chicago opening on State Street in 2012. The ninth in the Chicago area will open in Rogers Park in the fall, although seniors who live nearby oppose it.
Whole Foods is moving to 3201 N. Ashland Ave., to a 75,000-square-foot store that will be its second largest in Chicago.
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When the move was first proposed last year, neighbors said that along with concerns about traffic and building design they feared it would be difficult to fill the 31,000-square-foot building Whole Foods would leave behind.
Eventually, the plans were revised to mollify neighbors, who narrowly approved the project. Whole Foods broke ground in November 2015, and with it, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) promised a revitalized west Lakeview corridor as a result.
At the time, Tunney said Lincoln, Ashland and Belmont "was once — outside of Downtown — the busiest retail corridor" in Chicago. The city's second-largest Whole Foods will kick start its revitalization, he said.
"Stay tuned, folks in our neighborhood, because there are a number of meetings about this intersection and how we're going to enliven" it, Tunney said.
