New restaurant moves in, furniture store moves out and Borders building may be …

It’s been a blended bag for Deerfield businesses this month, as major retailers and restaurateurs move in while a major furniture store announced its departure.

The former Borders building might become home to at least three tenants that would split the space, village officials said.

Biaggi’s, an Italian restaurant chain, embarked on a new business venture at 711 Deerfield Road last week in the former location of the Stoney River restaurant. The opening was shortly after Rosebud began serving customers just a few blocks away, along Waukegan Road.

Noodles & Co.recently opened near the corner of Lake Cook and Waukegan roads, followed shortly after that by Wonder!, a 100,000-square-foot specialty shop for children’s items, near the same location.

The Borders building, which housed the now bankrupt book store chain since 1992 and had most recently operated as a short-term Halloween store, may be split up for retail or restaurant tenants, village officials said.

The property owners had suggested to the village that the 25,000-square-foot space could be reconfigured so at least three tenants could operate there, stated Jeff Ryckaert, Deerfield’s principal planner. At this point, no paper work to move that concept forward has been filed with the village, he said.

“They are looking at various uses, but they haven’t been that specific with us,” Ryckaert said. “It’d be a retail or restaurant type of thing.”

But Honquest Furniture Outlet Plus at 7 N. Waukegan Road, which opened last year on a trial basis, will close once most of its furniture has been sold. That’s expected to be in early December, Honquest officials said.

While it’s moving out of Deerfield, the Barrington-based company is starting a new store in January in Whitefish Bay, Wis., officials said.

Honquest representatives took out a short-term lease at the Deerfield location with the idea of staying if it could meet it goal to make between $2 million and $3 million annually. The first six months showed blended results, officials told the village.

Honquest selected the Deerfield site based on its clientele, many of whom live on the North Shore. The company wanted a store closer to its target population.

The location was an extension of its main store at 1455 S. Barrington Road, which has more than 80,000 square feet of showroom and warehouse space.

Before Honquest moved in, the retail space had been vacant for about three years. It had previously been a furniture store called the Rec Room, Deerfield officials said.

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