By Dawn Rhodes, Tribune reporter
5:33 PM CDT, March 26, 2014
Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Markets is set to open its newest location at the former Dominick’s in Downers Grove this spring, the company announced this week.
The Carol Stream-based company is planning to open at 42 Ogden Avenue. It would be the chain’s eighth store. It also plans to open a store in Carol Stream this year, according to the website.
“We are very excited to be opening and joining in the Downers Grove Family!” reads a post on the company website. “We are currently planning the renovations and will keep you updated.”
Marketing Director Curt Case said the company already has a sizeable customer base in Downers Grove.
“We were looking at our e-mail list and we’ve got 1,600 subscribers already in Downers Grove who come out to different stores,” Case said. “It made sense because we already have customers there.”
The former Dominick’s is part of the Downers Plaza shopping center, also home to a Trader Joe’s, Oberweis Dairy, Office Depot, See’s Candies and several other stores.
Michael Cassa, president of the village’s Economic Development Corporation, said there was a big sense of urgency to find a new tenant for the 72,000-square-foot building along the village’s biggest thoroughfare connecting it to nearby towns.
Cassa added that the opening tentatively is planned for late May.
“That’s the anchor tenant for that shopping center,” Cassa said. “It’s not only important that it generates sales tax but it also has a positive benefit to the others stores in that area that depend on the anchor to generate traffic.”
Also complicating the search, Cassa said, was that while the space proved an attractive site under normal circumstances, grocers and other merchants already were looking at the several dozen other Dominick’s that suddenly opened up.
Angelo Caputo’s is a family-owned company that dates back more than five decades. Founder Angelo Caputo immigrated to Chicago from Italy and opened the first store in Elmwood Park in 1958. His daughter and son-in-law now run the company.
The Downers Grove Dominick’s closed in December as parent company Safeway pulled out of the Chicago market, closing dozens of stores throughout the city and suburbs.
