Shoppers in a bustling Chicago neighborhood will soon be getting another grocery option, with Trader Joe’s set to open in the next couple of years.
The grocery chain signed a lease for a store inside LG Group’s planned 25-story apartment tower in Fulton Market, LG CEO Brian Goldberg told Crain’s Chicago Business.
LG Group’s targeted completion date for the 287-unit project at 170 N. May St., which includes an approximately 17,000-square-foot Trader Joe’s store, is the summer of 2027, Goldberg told the business website.
Earlier this year, Trader Joe’s revealed plans to open as many as 21 new stores across the U.S., however none were in the Chicago area, according to its website. The grocery retailer has a total of 22 locations in the Chicago area, six of which are in the city.
Beyond the upcoming stores, Trader Joe’s website has a function where shoppers can request a Trader Joe’s location near them.
“There are no guarantees, but being wanted matters to us,” the location recommendation form said. But there is more to it than that, a spokesperson said.
“We want and love customers and we need lots of people to be customers in any of our stores,” So, I’d say
first and foremost, we’re looking where people are,” Trader Joe’s employee Matt Sloan previously revealed on the Inside Trader Joe’s Podcast.”
“We have a list of criteria, and the criteria are really about access and ease of getting into and out of, and
the flow of traffic patterns, again, traffic patterns being driven by those numbers of people, but we have to look at a huge number of potential sites to make sure that we wind up getting the best site that we can,” he stated.
