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Eagerly awaited, Schaumburg Crate & Barrel opens Thursday

Whole Foods debut still a couple of months away

Employees at Schaumburg's new Crate & Barrel store are finishing preparations for Thursday's opening, the first of two long-awaited developments south of Woodfield Shopping Center.

Next to Crate & Barrel is a Whole Foods store with a couple months left before its own opening day.

Both are at the southwest corner of Woodfield and Martingale Roads, west of the Streets of Woodfield, on the former site of John M. Smyth Homemakers.

Crate & Barrel has been a tenant of Woodfield itself since August 1979, but closed that location Jan. 24 in anticipation of the new 26,200-square-foot building.

The new building has 16,000 to 17,000 square feet of display space, which is about twice as much as the mall store, Crate & Barrel CEO and President Barbara Turf said.

Because of their differences in size, the new location will be able to offer furniture, which the mall store did not, she added.

This has been a growing feature of Crate & Barrel stores and in the planning stages for Schaumburg for about three or four years, Turf said.

Because of the long-term nature of such planning, the economic recession has had virtually no effect on Crate & Barrel's outlook for the Schaumburg area, she added.

"We've been working on this for quite a while," Turf said.

While the store already has a strong, loyal customer base, partnering with such a high-traffic neighbor as Whole Foods is hoped to draw even more.

With more than 500 parking spaces shared between them, customers are expected to enjoy easy access to both stores, Turf said.

The Whole Foods to open this spring is 65,000 square feet, bigger than the typical store, which ranges from 55,000 to 60,000 square feet, company officials said.

The demolition of the warehouselike Homemakers building was a goal of Schaumburg officials since it opened in the early 1970s.

It was built immediately after Woodfield's approval, but more quickly and cheaply due to the minimal zoning standards of the time.

Appearance standards have improved dramatically in the Woodfield commercial district since then. Any of the village's other big-box stores boast superior architecture to the Homemakers building, Mayor Al Larson said.

Even after Homemakers left the building several years ago, there was a long wait for just the right developer, and one who recognized better opportunities for the site than just retrofitting the existing building, Larson said.

The new Schaumburg Crate & Barrel is nearly ready to open. It's neighbor, Whole Foods, will open in about two months. Mark Black | Staff Photographer