A U.K.-based clothing brand is planning its first store in the Midwest on a Chicago street that has been part of many similar debuts in recent years.
Toast plans to open this spring at 908 W. Armitage Ave., the company told CoStar News.
The retailer has leased 2,340 square feet within the two-story building as part of ongoing U.S. expansion.
The men’s and women’s clothing seller will be the latest overseas or domestic retailer to arrive on the street in Lincoln Park on the city’s North Side early in the process of creating a fleet of stores.
Armitage Avenue over the past several years emerged as a destination for online retailers to establish initial stores, often making their Midwest launch on the street.
In one recent example, San Francisco-based men’s apparel and accessories seller Huckberry opened its second U.S. store on Armitage, following one in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood.
Other recent arrivals on Armitage include Hotel Chocolate, Levain Baker, Rails and Abercrombie & Fitch.
With little space available, rents have increased by 50% as some leases have expired in recent years, according to comments to analysts from executives at Acadia Realty Trust. The real estate investment trust is the biggest retail landlord on the street.
The small building that Toast is moving into also includes a lower-level space leased to a cobbler and a large apartment unit above the retail space. It is owned by local investors, including Zack Cupkovic.
Toast's head of retail expansion, New York-based Renda Mansour, said the brand prefers urban storefronts within neighborhoods “where there is a strong sense of community and creativity.”
“We try to find pockets of cities where that is alive and well, which in Chicago is Lincoln Park,” Mansour told CoStar News.
Mansour noted the street's mix of longtime tenants such as the Old Town School of Music and Art Effect and contemporary brands that Toast likes being near such as Catbird and Clare V.
Toast was established as a seller of nightwear and loungewear in 1997 in a Wales farmhouse. Products now include clothing, homeware and accessories.
Toast opened its first U.S. shop in Brooklyn in 2024. The company now has four stores in New York and one each in Boston and San Francisco, to go with 20 stores in the United Kingdom.
A store opened this week in West Hollywood, California, with another on the way in Washington, D.C. Mansour said more U.S. shops are planned, but she declined to comment on target markets.
The Chicago building that Toast is leasing fits the store's pattern of inhabiting unique, older buildings, which Mansour said fits the ethos of a company that emphasizes reusing materials and offers clothing repairs in all its shops.
“We tend to inhabit historic buildings in historic districts,” Mansour said. “In Chicago, there’s an opportunity to restore an 1800s workers cottage and create the experience of being in a home.”
For the record
The landlord was represented by Savills brokers Phil Golding, Kimberly Wiskup and Todd Siegel. The tenant was represented by Canvas Real Estate broker Michael Wexler and Isaacs and Company broker Nick Cowan.