The Uptown Broadway Building on Broadway, in the neighborhood's main commercial district. Photo: nmcgowan01 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The list of businesses signing up with Business Partners, the Chamber for Uptown, this fall reads like a cross-section of the neighborhood’s economy. A dozen companies and organizations joined or renewed between August and October.
The group includes Actors Workshop Theater, American Family Insurance, the marketing firm Audience Logic, Chiropractic Care Ltd., psychologist Janet Willer, Marigold Restaurant, the New Vision of Hope Foundation, Newcastle Limited, Re/Max Edge, The Spot, the boutique Unique So Chique and Your Plan B.
What the mix says
The roster shows how varied Uptown’s business base has become. Arts groups sit next to health providers, a real estate office and a nonprofit. Marigold, a modern Indian restaurant, opened this year at 4832 N. Broadway. Unique So Chique runs a boutique and tea room on Magnolia Avenue. New Vision of Hope Foundation is preparing an AIDS benefit gala in November at a historic mansion on Malden Street.
Real estate firms have been an especially steady presence in local business circles as condo conversions and new construction reshape the housing stock. Uptown condo prices rose sharply in the first half of this decade, and brokers and developers have a direct stake in how the commercial strips around them evolve.
Why owners join
Neighborhood chambers in Chicago sell themselves on networking, promotion and help with city bureaucracy, from licenses to sidewalk cafe permits. Many also administer or promote public programs, such as Small Business Improvement Fund grants in tax increment financing districts. For small owners without staff to track those programs, a membership can be a shortcut.
The chamber said profiles of the new members would appear in its fall newsletter. Contact information for each business is listed in its member directory.
Marcus Hadley covers business, transit and real estate in Uptown.
