June 2018

140 141 ELMHURST, ILLINOIS ury condo projects; the York Building project, featuring two floors of 20,000 sq. ft. of Class A office space, plus 10,000 sq. ft. of first floor retail; and an $18 million update of Elmhurst’s train station, the busiest stop on Metra’s Union-PacificWest line. According to Jason, who is the city’s first, full-time Economic Development Coor- dinator, all of these projects are part of the city’s plan to embrace “Transit Oriented Developments”–projects that help promote more walkability, more entertain- ment options, more daytime population growth, more destination driven venues in the downtown core, and more of, what she calls, “experiential businesses” that are key to attracting a younger generation of workers, as well as older retirees who are looking to downsize and move downtown closer to the city’s busy train station. “One of the things that we’ve done was to shift the focus and recognize that experiential businesses and Medtail, things like workout facilities - an Oran- getheory Fitness or a Pure Barre - have a place in what used to be a more tradi- tional retail location and are an important part of the mix,” she says. “An Escape Room opened in our downtown, last year; a painting studio recently opened,” Jason continues. “One of our new restaurants, the Red Arrow Tap Room, is the first place in the Chicago suburbs where you pour your own craft beer. It’s got a tap wall - 40 taps and you put your card in and pour by the ounce what you want to try. These types of experiential businesses are things that Millennials and young professionals are looking for.We’ve had a slew of new restaurants – several new, higher end restaurants, fast casu- al restaurants, as well as the Elmhurst Brewing Company, a craft brewery, which just opened in early 2018.” In addition to numerous other commercial shopping areas, Elmhurst also has several busi- ness parks - three of them, Grand Avenue Business Park, Church Road Business Park, and Business Park North, comprise 455 contiguous acres in the northwest part of the city. Kopp reports that keeping those businesses happy is also on the administration’s agenda. Last year, the city re- surfaced Industrial Drive, the main road going through Business Park North, while also adding a sidewalk that was never there, before. “The issue of connectivity and employee mobility is import- ant; the people who work up there want to go out for lunch; they want to take a walk. The city