"I just feel that entire block is not shaping up the way I think we had all hoped." That's Winnetka trustee Kim Handler, on the record at an April 2026 village council meeting, talking about the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Elm Street. Not a critic of the project. Not someone who wanted the site to stay six empty storefronts forever. A trustee who voted, reluctantly, to approve the building's last tenant anyway.
If you've walked past that fenced construction site on your way to the farmers market this summer, you already know the corner is filling in. What you might not know is that the fight over what's filling it in has been happening in public meetings for the better part of a year, and it isn't over food or fashion. It's over a hearing clinic.
Nearly Two Decades of Trying to Fill Six Storefronts
The southeast corner of Elm and Lincoln has been an active redevelopment problem in Winnetka since the 2008 recession sank the first plan for the site. A second attempt, a seven-story, 120-unit proposal, won preliminary approval as condos in 2017 before trustees rescinded it in 2019. A third developer floated a deal in 2020 that never closed. When the village council finally gave final approval to Murphy Development Group's scaled-down plan in April 2024, Village President Chris Rintz's response to the developers was blunt: "Go build something, OK?"
They are. One Winnetka is a four-story, Tudor-revival building with 59 apartments above roughly 20,955 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. Crain's Chicago Business reported the project closed on a $66 million construction loan against an $89 million total cost, with completion targeted for December 2026 and commercial tenants beginning to open in early 2027. Walk past it now and you'll see a live construction site instead of the row of shuttered buildings that sat there for most of the last decade.
What "Sold Out" Actually Means
In late 2025, the development team announced the ground floor was sold out, six tenants across roughly 20,955 square feet, and at the time that included a second dining concept, a fast-casual natural-food spot called Fare, alongside Ballyhoo's Arkadia. By April 2026, when DUET Audiology's application reached the council, village staff described it as filling "the sixth and final vacancy," and trustees were on the record worried about a lack of retail businesses in the building. Whatever happened between those two dates, only four tenants have turned up by name in public reporting since:
- Arkadia, a Mediterranean concept from Ballyhoo Hospitality, the group behind Pomeroy, the French bistro that's occupied 844 Spruce St. since 2021. Arkadia will be Ballyhoo's second Winnetka restaurant, roughly 6,700 square feet with seating for 200 inside and 40 outside.
- Charles Schwab, a financial services branch.
- Solidcore, a national fitness studio chain.
- DUET Audiology Clinic, relocating from an existing Northfield location.
Of those four, only Arkadia serves food. When residents pictured this corner reopening, most were picturing something closer to the dining and retail mix the village has spent years trying to protect along Elm Street. What's confirmed instead is a bank branch, a fitness franchise, and a hearing clinic sharing ground-floor space with one restaurant that won't open until 2027.
The Vote That Split the Board
DUET's approval wasn't a formality. The clinic came to the council in April 2026 with a negative recommendation from the village's own Plan Commission, and trustees ultimately approved it in a 4-2 vote. Handler and trustee Rob Apatoff both voted no, not because they objected to DUET as a business, but because they didn't think One Winnetka, sitting inside Winnetka's retail overlay district, was the right address for it. Apatoff put it almost the same way Handler did: he liked what the clinic could bring to Winnetka, just not there.
DUET's owner, Dr. Lori Halvorson, pushed back on the premise that an audiology practice doesn't belong in a retail corridor, telling trustees her clinic used the latest medical research and incorporated things like music and metronome training, calling it "retail with purpose." The council approved it anyway. But the split vote, on the sixth and final space in a building the whole village had waited on for years, tells you the retail-versus-service question isn't settled. It's just been decided, once, for one tenant.
The Businesses That Aren't Waiting for an Answer
While the council debated the building's future tenant mix, the shops already standing on Lincoln Avenue were dealing with its present. In March 2026, several business owners addressed the council directly about construction disruption and parking. Terry Dason, president of the Winnetka-Northfield-Glencoe Chamber of Commerce, described roughly ten retail shops along Lincoln and Elm as increasingly outnumbered and asked trustees to weigh how additional high-traffic businesses might affect an area already under strain.
Deb McMahon, who manages J.McLaughlin, a women's clothing store on Lincoln for more than twenty years, said she'd asked the village for parking help repeatedly, in person and by email, without a resolution. Annette Pecora, who owns The 60s Beauty Lash nearby, was more direct about how the block has changed: "We're as bad as Glencoe."
None of this is a story about businesses failing. It's a story about a corridor absorbing a construction fence, a parking crunch, and a tenant mix that isn't what its own trustees expected, all at the same time. Even the small details are getting litigated. In February 2026, trustees approved a right-of-way agreement for Arkadia after its floor plan changed enough that the entry door, once tucked into a recessed alcove like most Winnetka storefronts, now swings six inches into the public sidewalk when fully open. It's a minor fix on paper. It's also a sign of how closely the village is tracking every physical detail of a project this long in the making.
Down the Block, Avli Bet the Other Way
While One Winnetka's ground floor tilted toward services, one of Elm Street's existing restaurants doubled down on food. Avli, the Greek restaurant that's occupied Winnetka's Laundry building for more than 16 years, completed its largest expansion yet in early 2026, adding 2,400 square feet, including a roughly 1,600-square-foot lounge and another 800 feet of front-room dining. New chef Jorge Angulo, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, rebuilt the menu around mezedes, the shared small plates central to Greek dining, while keeping most of the dishes longtime regulars would still recognize.
Avli's expansion is a useful contrast. It's proof that Elm Street's existing dining core still sees enough foot traffic to justify growing, even as the corridor's newest, most anticipated building leans away from food. Two doors down from a construction fence, a restaurant that's been there since before most of the current council was elected just bet its future on more seats, not fewer.
What to Watch as the Fence Comes Down
None of the disagreement changes the calendar. One Winnetka is still targeting a December 2026 finish, with Arkadia and its neighbors expected to start opening in early 2027. Until then, the corridor's weekend rhythm holds where it's held all summer: the farmers market at 754 Elm on Saturday mornings, and the Hubbard Woods Design District's monthly First Friday events a few blocks north on Green Bay Road, which run through the fall calendar with an evening on September 11 and the season-closing Art Walk on October 2.
What changes next year isn't just that six empty storefronts become six occupied ones. It's whether a building the village spent two decades trying to fill actually restores the retail energy Elm Street's shop owners were hoping for, or whether "sold out" turns out to mean something narrower than that. Either way, the debate over what belongs on that corner isn't finished. It just moved from a planning commission agenda to the sidewalk in front of it.
If you're weighing what a changing corridor like this means for a home nearby, whether it's a reason to buy in now or a detail worth understanding before you sell, that's exactly the kind of hyperlocal read Lyn Wise Group tracks block by block across the North Shore. Request a Home Valuation & Market Plan and we'll walk you through what's actually happening on the ground, not just what the listing says.
