NO MORE BOOZE!

Sam's Liquors is no more! The South Loop, which had a storied history involving bootlegged liquor, Al Capone, red light districts, vagrants and drunks, obviously has changed in more ways than one could have ever imagined. This is not to say that it can't support a beverage retailer of spirits, wine and beer, but it is a disappointment that Sam's has left as of August 9th,2009. No more gourmet cheeses, $300 bottles of wine or exotic beers. Sam's fall in the South Loop probably had more to do with practices not condoned by the Federal Regulators. Wine Spectator wrote:
"Last week 10 of the largest alcoholic-beverage distributors in the state agreed to pay a total of $803,000 in fines to the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). The penalties were levied by federal regulators following a six-year probe into abuses at Sam's Wine & Spirits Inc. in Chicago, which was caught accepting kickbacks from wholesalers and running an unlicensed warehouse for the storage of surplus inventory."

South Loop Rentals At Roosevelt Road

A new 342-unit condo project on Roosevelt Road is now being converted into apartments. Centrum Properties, the developer had 60% of the condo units under contract but due to the shift in the real estate market, a sufficient number of sales had not been reached which would allow lenders to provide financing for the contract buyers to close.
The Lofts at Roosevelt Collection, at 150 W. Roosevelt Road, is the second South Loop condo project to go rental in the past two years, after Burnham Pointe, a 298-unit high-rise at 730 S. Clark St. Rents in the Centrum project will start at $1,375 a month for a one-bedroom unit and $2,300 for two bedrooms.