Hyde Park's retail revival is on a roll

Chef Matthias Merges said he hesitated at first when the University of Chicago asked him several years ago to open a restaurant in Hyde Park. The owner of acclaimed Yusho and Billy Sunday in hipster haven Logan Square loved the diverse and tightknit South Side neighborhood, but would it have enough bustle to support his dining concepts?

Nine months after opening the upscale French-Italian restaurant A10 on 53rd Street, part of a sweeping university-led effort to revive Hyde Park's commercial core, Merges has an answer.

"It has crushed our expectations," said Merges, who this fall plans to open a second Yusho location in Hyde Park, at 53rd and Kimbark Avenue. "It's like people have been waiting for businesses to come down and help revitalize it."

The decadelong, multimillion-dollar effort to rejuvenate Hyde Park, widely known for its museums and academics, but not as a terribly cool place to hang out, has been on a roll in the past year, with a flurry of new businesses open in the redeveloped Harper Court shopping center and with business owners reporting positive results.

Kilwin's Chocolates and Fudge is one of the 28 new businesses that have opened in the past three years along the 53rd Street corridor, the focus of the redevelopment. Franchise owner Jackie Jackson said her sales are double what they were at the Kilwin's she ran for five years in the heart of the tony Old Town neighborhood. Jackson, who lives in Hyde Park and opened the shop in December 2012, said she started turning a profit this year for the first time since she went into business in 2008.

Jackson was able to open the second shop because the university offered a rent abatement and help with her build-out. She closed her Old Town store a year ago after vandals broke the windows there, the third break-in at the site, she said, and is focusing on Hyde Park, where she feels overwhelming support.

"I think this neighborhood is more receptive," Jackson said. "Because Hyde Park was underserved, people are very excited."

Across the street, at the Hyatt Place, which opened in September 2013 at Harper Court, revenues are exceeding expectations by 25 percent, and occupancy is 10 percent above projections, said general manager Anthony Beach. Average room rates are just $5 less than its downtown competitors, a mark of high demand, he said.

Most of the hotel guests are visiting the University of Chicago school or medical center (the hotel offers a shuttle to both), but some are McCormick Place conference attendees, who Beach said are important for shedding widespread misconceptions about the neighborhood.

"We had a number of reservations cancel on us at first when they heard we were on the South Side. We hear it all the time from travelers who say they've heard terrible things about the South Side," said Beach, who grew up in the Englewood neighborhood and attended Hyde Park Career Academy for high school.

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Hyde Park's retail revival is on a roll