A bike lane and parked cars beside the elevated tracks in Evanston. Photo: David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Ask the City of Evanston how many business districts it has and the answer depends on which page you read. The city’s business districts page says nine. Its 2023 retail plan covers eight. Its Enjoy Evanston promotion site refers to ten. For anyone comparing rents, foot traffic or storefront opportunities, the discrepancy is worth understanding before the numbers are used.
The nine on the city’s page
The city’s page lists these districts and describes each in a sentence:
- Downtown: the widest mix of retail brands, with more than 60 restaurants, rooftop bars and an arts and entertainment scene.
- Main-Dempster Mile: a walkable area with varied food, live shows and shops, galleries and studios.
- Central Street: independent stores, bakeries, cafes and boutiques, anchored by two museums and Northwestern’s stadium.
- Noyes Street: a small district near Northwestern with long-standing restaurants and newer arrivals.
- Howard Street: a corridor linking Evanston and Chicago, known for international food, murals and live theater.
- West End: historically industrial, now home to a brewery, wellness and arts businesses and a global grocery.
- Church and Dodge: a longtime cultural center for the city’s African American community, with some of its first Black-owned businesses.
- Ashland Arts: repurposed warehouses housing a brewery, a barbecue restaurant, a wellness center and art studios, with new investment planned.
- West Village: an enclave of artisan shops, studios and galleries anchored by a holistic healthcare center.
A February 2024 city bulletin announcing Enjoy Evanston names the same nine.
Where the counts split
The retail plan, called Evanston Thrives and adopted by the City Council on May 8, 2023, covers eight districts, according to the consulting team’s project page. That page does not name them, so it is not clear which district was left out of the plan’s eight.
A separate city 311 knowledge base entry also says nine, but its list differs. It names Central Evanston and Southwest Evanston where the business districts page names Church and Dodge and Ashland Arts. The Enjoy Evanston homepage says ten, without listing them on its front page.
The likeliest explanation is that districts have been added, renamed or grouped differently as city programs changed, though the city has not said so in the pages reviewed. Treat any single figure as the count for that document.
Reading the map
Several patterns show up in the descriptions. Downtown is described as the city’s broadest mix of brands and its biggest dining draw. Central Street and Noyes lean on independent shops and the Northwestern connection. Howard Street sits on the Chicago border and is defined by its international food. West End, Ashland Arts and West Village share an industrial or warehouse past and now lean toward breweries, studios and wellness businesses, a mix that differs from the traditional storefront streets.
For a prospective tenant or investor, that suggests the districts are not interchangeable. A cafe that suits Central Street may have little in common with a production space in Ashland Arts. The city’s Enjoy Evanston site offers area guides, a district map and an events calendar for each area.
Sources: City of Evanston business districts page, 311 knowledge base and bulletins; Interface Studio’s Evanston Thrives page.
Thomas Brennan covers property taxes, real estate, transit and the local economy for The Evanston Edge.
