New grocer may come to downtown Wheaton

Attention downtown Wheaton Jewel Food Store shoppers. The city's cleanup of the aisle known as Willow Avenue is now positioned to include a grocery that doesn't carry the Jewel banner.

With only brief hesitation, the city council approved a new law addressing the possible future sale of the Willow Avenue Jewel.

Supervalue, which owns the store along with CVS, hasn't committed to keeping the store open beyond the end of this year. Logic says the Jewel owners wouldn't want to sell the location to a competitor that would take business away from the other two Jewel stores on the bookends of Wheaton.

The new law prevents the Jewel owners from placing any covenants in the sale contract that ban a new grocery from taking its place if the Willow Avenue store is sold.

The law applies to all the commercial and industrial properties in the city, but the city's staff and officials haven't hidden the specific impact of the law on the downtown Jewel.

And corporate officials for Jewel have provided no opposition or comment to the city about the law. Likewise, conversations about transforming the Willow Avenue store into a bigger, better Jewel with a drugstore have fallen silent.

Councilman Phil Suess suggested giving Jewel and CVS a bit more time to resolve the co-ownership problems with the store before passing the new law.

"My thought is that if those folks can work out their issues between them so that they come with and identify singular ownership, that might be in our best interest," Suess said. "I'm kind of the opinion let's see how that plays out."

But City Manager Don Rose said he didn't see any negatives in passing the law now.

The council unanimously approved the new law with Councilman Tom Mouhelis saying it's time to ensure the downtown has a grocery with a drugstore soon.

"If it is Jewel, fantastic," Mouhelis said. "If it isn't Jewel, that's fine, too."