How many Targets

It seems I keep on reading about these new Targets opening up in the city, here is another one. At least they seem to get better with each new one announced. CHICAGO-A West Ridge site formerly occupied by Venture and Kmart stores will be redeveloped by Target Corp., which is betting its drawing power and building designs will break a string of retail failures at 2112 W. Peterson Ave. The Minneapolis-based retail giant is buying the 6.4-acre site New Hyde Park, NY-based Kimco Realty Corp., which has owned the now shuttered Kmart since 1998. Target plans to build a 160,000-sf store, which unlike the current building, would front on Peterson Avenue. The building would have glass windows on the front and would have a green roof of at least 54,000 sf. The company aims to receive LEED certification from the US Green Building Council. Â"WeÂ've been able to do it for less than a 10% premium,Â" says Target Corp. development manager Ken Potts of the environmentally friendly building designs. Those measures are expected to cost about $3 million. Although Potts could not provide a cost estimate, other stores built by the company in the market have been in excess of $30 million. Potts says Target has bought sites across the county previously occupied by Kmart and Venture, two retailers who ran into financial difficulty. Â"We plan on being at this location for a long, long time,Â" says Potts, who eyes a summer 2006 opening for the store. Â"I donÂ't know exactly why the others left. WeÂ've been successful with our Chicago stores.Â" City officials offered a blunt assessment before the proposal got a favorable recommendation recently from the plan commission. Â"The other stores went out of business not because this site wasnÂ't successful, but the chains themselves werenÂ't,Â" says 40th Ward Alderman Patrick J. OÂ'Connor. Adds 50th Ward Alderman Bernard L. Stone, Â"The previous marketers really hid themselves from Peterson by not being on Peterson. ...This is a much better plan that anything thatÂ's been presented by anyone.Â" The site was originally used as an auto storage facility, Stone notes. OÂ'Connor adds there has been Â"tremendousÂ" interest in the site, although some of the proposed uses have been deemed Â"abhorrent.Â">