Lincoln Park lost another of its long loved retailers with the closure of Elston Ace Hardware, 2767 N. Lincoln Ave., an 82-year-old institution founded by the Schnakenberg family, which witnessed the once working class area transform into the now tony Lincoln Park and Lake View communitieshe store’s management credits the future Halsted St. Home Depot as the main reason why the store was closed on Nov. 1. With that store slated for a location a mere four blocks away from Elston Ace, management saw the trends and didn’t care to fight that battle at this location. Richard Donchin, the store’s owner at its close, owns four other Ace stores in the city, some of which may be jeopardized by another future Home Depot at Fullerton and Elston avenues.
“That new Home Depot store [at Halsted and Schubert streets] was the one we were worried about,” said Michael Binake, a manager at Elston Ace, which bought Schnakenberg Ace in 1993. “Also, the changes in the market area, which were great for the community, just didn’t work for us.”
Elston Ace generates a lot of its business from commercial and industrial clients as well as tradesmen and contractors doing business north and west of Lincoln Park. It never really tried to enter the housewares market, which drove much of Lincoln Park and Lake View hardware trends over the last decade.
Elston Ace is but the first of many long time hardware retailers in the area that will feel the bite of Home Depot’s new prototype 60,000 square foot store to be built on the site of the shuttered Chernin’s Shoe Store. Several other hardware stores are located within steps of the proposed site: Wahler Bros. True Value, 2551 N. Halsted St., which ironically will be celebrating its centennial in Lincoln Park just about the time Home Depot opens its doors, and Edwards True Value, 2904 N. Halsted St.
Other stores which may be affected are Arlington Hardware, 2465 N. Clark St., Tenenbaum Hardware and Paint, 1138 W. Belmont Ave., and Sappano’s Paint and Wallpaper Co., 2940 N. Halsted St.
“I have a lot of concerns on my mind regarding this Home Depot,” said Mike Kriger, owner of Wahler Bros. True Value. “This is my livelihood, I’ve worked here for 45 years and it will impact us severely as well as the neighborhood.”
Schnakenberg Ace Hardware was in fact the eighth Ace store to open in the entire franchise which now numbers over 5,500. “My great grandfather George first opened the store at George St. and Lincoln Ave. in 1920,” said C. J. Schnakenberg, who was the family’s fourth generation to work the store prior to selling it. “I’m not overly melancholy over the closing. I’ve moved on and I’m so busy with my own store [Chicago Brass] that I really haven’t had time to think about it.”
“A lot has changed since I first got involved with the store,” said Schnakenberg. “When I was a kid 75 percent of our business was commercial—with all the factories and industry which used to be located there—and only 25 percent residential. Most of those industries are now gone.”
“We knew everybody, where they worked, who their kids were, where they went to church,” he said. Pointing to the transitory nature of the area’s current residents where few can now claim to have grown up in the area, Schnakenberg says there is still opportunity for the small guy in hardware retailing if they get creative and open new niche markets and focus on service. “It’s more difficult now. Home Depot will come in and they will make some mistakes and others, like Wahler Bros., will be there to take advantage of them.”
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