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Application filed for Trader Joe’s in Jefferson Park on Chicago’s NW Side
by BRIAN NADIG
A zoning application recently was filed for the planned Trader Joe’s on the former site of CVS Pharmacy, 6200 W. Higgins Ave., as the grocery store is expected to open in the fall of 2026, according to Alderman James Gardiner (45th).
“By adding a Trader Joe’s to our Jefferson Park, we will now have an anchor store that will help attract more business and residents to our community,” Gardiner said last December when he announced plans for the project.
Under the proposal, Trader Joe’s would buy the 1.4-acre parcel and demolish the current building on the site, Gardiner said. The triangular-shaped parcel borders Foster Avenue, Higgins Avenue and Melvina Avenue.
A new 15,500-square-foot, one-story store would be built on east end of the parcel. The building would be about 20 feet tall.
108 parking spaces are planned for the project.
CVS closed on the site in 2022. Another nearby CVS, located at 6417 W. Higgins Ave., is about two blocks away and remains open.
This would not be the first grocery store on the property. In the 1960s the existing building there was home to a Kroger grocery store and in the 1970s a Dominick’s before eventually becoming an Osco and then a CVS, said Northwest Chicago Historical Society researcher Frank Suerth.
The Trader Joe’s Company was founded in California about 60 years ago and was later sold to the founder of the Aldi grocery store chain.
The “Trader Joe’s” name is frequently raised at community meetings when residents are asked what type of business would they like to see open in their neighborhood.
The project is contingent on rezoning the property to B3-1, which permits a variety of retail uses.
More than 15 years ago then-alderman Patrick Levar had the property on Higgins downzoned to RS-2, which is intended for low-density, single-family residential use.
Levar said at the time that due to the downzoning the community would have input into its potential redevelopment if the property were ever sold or leased for a non-pharmacy use.
A narrow strip of land on the development site reportedly is a city of Chicago right-of-way, possibly once used for a bus stop, and plans were being made for the city to vacate that land. Gardiner recently said that the developer has resolved the issue with the city.
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