Chicago Illinois Real Estate Blog

Retailing in the Loop is getting sweeter.

Iconic Chicago chocolate maker Fannie May Confections Inc. plans to open a new store on Wabash Avenue, near the candy company’s former flagship location at the corner of Wabash and Randolph Street. And right next door to the new Fannie May, a local startup that specializes in fancy cupcakes is preparing to open its first store at 115 N. Wabash Ave.

“I think it’s a perfect combination,” says Teresa Ging, who started Sugar Bliss Cake Boutique last October, focusing on the catering side of the business while she scouted for locations in the Loop. “There isn’t any place to get a cupcake in the Loop. . . .This location is close to Millennium Park, Macy’s and Block 37. It’s a good pedestrian traffic area where we can be open seven days a week.”

Ms. Ging will be baking on site and says her kitchen will take up most of the roughly 1,000 square feet Sugar Bliss is leasing. Seating will consist primarily of a barstool-and-counter area.

Sugar Bliss was represented in the lease transaction by Wendy Berger Shapiro, principal with Chicago-based WBS Equities LLC.

Both Sugar Bliss and Fannie May will be in the base of the Heritage at Millennium Park condominium tower, the 357-unit building with an address of 130 N. Garland Court.

While it’s a new store for Fannie May, it’s a familiar location for the chocolatier, which went through two bankruptcies in the early 2000s. Now a subsidiary of Carle Place, N.Y.-based 1-800-Flowers.com, the company operated a store at the corner of Wabash and Randolph for many years.

In 2001, before its first bankruptcy protection filing, Fannie May’s former parent company sold its store to the Heritage condo developers in exchange for a 25-year agreement to lease back the storefront once the new tower was completed. The second bankruptcy prompted the Heritage developers, Chicago firms Mesa Development LLC and Klutznick-Fisher Development Co., to spend $2.1 million to buy out the lease through bankruptcy proceedings.

After 1-800-Flowers bought Fannie May in April 2006, the chocolate company began looking to expand its retail presence, and later approached the Heritage developers about leasing the space, says Ed Fitzpatrick, Fannie May’s vice-president of retail operations.

“I liked the fact that we did have a location there before,” Mr. Fitzpatrick says. “It was a very good volume store for years.”

Executives with Mesa and Klutznick-Fisher couldn’t be reached. Fannie May represented itself in the lease.

The new Fannie May will be at 117 N. Wabash and is to be just larger than 1,000 square feet. Work on the interior is being completed now, says Mr. Fitzpatrick, who hopes to have the store open by Sept. 1.

Fannie May now has 61 retail locations, all in the Midwest, including three others downtown, and plans to open 13 more stores systemwide by year-end, Mr. Fitzpatrick says.
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