Editorial: Jewel's parent company should work with suburbs

It was a devastating blow to many communities when longtime grocer Dominick's closed down in 2013.

Since then, Jewel-Osco, Whole Foods and Mariano's have taken over many of the vacated storefronts and revitalized shopping centers throughout the region, including those in Bensenville, Fox River Grove, Naperville and Lake Zurich to name just a few.

But as mayors and village presidents from communities in Cook, DuPage, Kendall, Lake and Will counties declared last week, there are 15 more vacated stores that need to be filled. And the elected officials say Jewel-Osco, which now holds the leases, is preventing that from happening.

A grocery store can make or break a shopping center and in turn make or break a community's efforts to revitalize downtrodden areas.

"When you're leasing a space that doesn't have a tenant and you're renewing that lease for five years purposely so you can control what goes in there, that's where we're having an issue," Bartlett Village President Kevin Wallace said at a news conference attended by 10 of his mayoral colleagues last week.

The leaders called on Albertsons, parent company of Jewel-Osco to do the right thing by these communities and their residents.

"The damaging effects of keeping these spaces vacant is very difficult for a lot of these communities," Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico said. "We need to do a better job working together and putting the community first, and right now the communities are not being put first. We're asking for their help. We need to see some participation."

Just as the state isn't going to solve its problems if the governor and speaker of the house don't communicate directly, neither will this issue be resolved if Albertsons representatives refuse to meet with suburban officials.

It's disappointing that instead of accepting an invitation to meet and directly address these concerns, Albertsons sent a letter.

"Frankly, we are pleased with our progress over the last year at finding solutions to the vacancies and still have more work to do," wrote Steve Cogan, senior vice president of real estate and store development. "We are cautiously optimistic about filling the remaining spaces."

The mayors - and people in their community - want to know when. And they want to know why Albertsons won't accept their help in getting these spaces filled.

In some cases, the mayors say they know of interested tenants but the company is not cooperating.

Everyone should want an answer as to why.

It's time for Albertsons to provide some real answers.