Highland Park retail vacancy rate drops to under 7%; staff credit grant programs

The City of Highland Park’s work on its core priority of business and economic development appears to be paying off.

According to recent data presented on Nov. 18 during a Committee of the Whole meeting of the City Council, Highland Park currently has a retail occupancy rate of just over 93 percent. 

Councilmembers heard presentations from city staff during the informal session devoted to providing an overview of business development and community development services, programs and procedures in Highland Park. 

Highland Park’s Assistant City Manager Erin Jason presented the council with a detailed breakdown of the role of the city’s Business Development Division in relation to economic development while also detailing the town’s progress over the last several years. 

The city’s business development strategic plan was updated in 2023 after what city documents describe as “extensive outreach and development in late 2021 through 2022.” Jason told the council that the updated plan’s main focus areas allow for “new organizational approaches, enhanced community branding, and strengthening existing practices.”

Jason noted during her presentation that 55 new businesses have opened in Highland Park in 2024 alone. The 93 percent occupancy rate is up from 86 percent in 2021. Per Jason, the city has just over 2.1 million square feet of total retail space.

“We’ve all heard the rhetoric and the conversation that we have large vacancies in town (but) I would just like to point out that our current retail occupancy is 93 percent,” Jason said. 

Staff reported that a key aspect in both business attraction and retention is the city’s incentive and grant programs. Highland Park currently offers businesses a series of incentive programs, including an exterior improvement grant, a sales tax rebate, a food and beverage interior improvement and expansion grant, and a boutique incentive.

Eleven businesses have been approved for or are awaiting approval from the council for the exterior improvement grant. The program has issued just over $68,000 to Highland Park businesses. 

Four businesses have received the food and beverage interior improvement and expansion grant thus far with awarded amounts ranging as high as just over $135,000. The city has awarded upward of $530,000 since the program became active, Jason said. 

As previously reported by The Record, Highland Park’s City Council approved an economic incentive agreement earlier this year with DeNucci’s Italian HP, a new eatery from the Ballyhoo Hospitality restaurant group that just opened at 1850 Second St.

The agreement provided a $1.5 million grant to the restaurant operator that was to be used toward what city officials estimated as a total project cost of $2.3 million to bring the coveted business to downtown Highland Park. Ballyhoo was the first restaurant group to utilize the city’s boutique incentive. 

In August of last year during a Committee of the Whole session, city officials recommended the new boutique incentive as a way “to attract highly desirable established restaurant groups with a proven track record of success, facilitate leases between businesses and property owners, and catalyze more restaurants and businesses to invest in Highland Park,” according to a village memo.

The boutique incentive program is designed as a short-term initiative with a terminating date of the fiscal year 2027 or after three to five qualifying restaurants open in Highland Park, The Record previously reported. 

During the council’s regular meeting, which followed the committee session, councilmembers approved two exterior improvement grant applications (Yana’s speakeasy, Bella Via) and four interior improvement grants (Michael’s, Indus, That Little French Guy, Brae House Coffee and Market).

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