First store opens at Englewood Square, soon home to Whole Foods

When the city approached DL3 Realty and Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives about redeveloping 13 acres of vacant land in Englewood on the South Side, DL3's Leon Walker thought about what the area looked like when he was growing up.

His mother was raised there and attended Englewood High School. His parents, both educators, had operated early education schools across the South Side, and as a child, he often visited with them the Englewood Mall at 63rd and Halsted.

"Whenever you have a large tract of land in the middle of the city, everybody always says, 'Let's do a big box, an out lot on the corner and a parking lot in between, and we're done,' " said Walker, owner and landlord of the 5.5-acre Englewood Square at 63rd and Halsted, where a Whole Foods store will open in September.

The $20 million project - watched nationally since Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced in fall 2013 that he had lured an upscale grocer to a community known more for intractable gang crime and poverty - is part of Emanuel's overall revitalization plan for Englewood.

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