If they opened in October 2011, then closed in February 2012, they were open for four months, not three.

Wish i could have shorted the stock.......

This is really unfortunate for a number of reasons. 1) People who have parties planned at the location are now scrambling 2)People who purchased "memberships" that are now worthless 3)People who registered for classes may never get their money back. 4)Vendors, including those suing the company, will probably never see their payments.

Most small businesses fail within a year. However 1 that does not even make it 6 months was probably significantly undercapitalized, and thus should have never opened in the first place.

I Wonder! what is going to go in that space. They have to sub-divide it, as the days of the mega-box store are pretty much over, as Wonder! helped to prove.

Indoor baseball facility would be great! Bubble roof, etc.

Deerfield needs to tear down both those shopping centers and start over........traffic is a mess, they were devloped in the 60's. Something like the Glen would do very well in all that space. With a very high median income.....Deerfield has way too much empty retail space. Lincolnshire is doing rings around Deerfield. The mayor is a clown and village board has no vision. With new retail development in the lake cook /waukegan cooridor, stores would flock to deerfield. But sadly they are closing shop and moving to other towns. But hey they getting new libary and village hall is real fancy too.

Q IS RIGHT!!!

It's long past time for the village to start working with the developer/owner to revitalize that mess of a retail area. I wonder how much tax revenue is lost with all the vacant space over there? Even Boston Market closed in the last couple months.

Com' on, Deerfield. Time to start thinking ahead a bit. How can you screw up an area with as much traffic as Lake Cook Rd/Waukegan?

I work in communty development. There is a ton of things deerfield can do, create a TIF district and give developers incentaive to build. Use emmint domain, its done all the time.

To Ronnie ...

Was Wonder really given tax incentives? That's disappointing.

I've only been in this community for a couple years. Maybe you can offer some insight. What should I expect out of this board and the mayor? Can they revitalize things?

As for TIFs, I'm pretty sure I know a few Chicago communities where mid-income areas were greatly improved with the help of TIFs. The money is there. Somebody is going to use it. If the town doesn't try/know how to access it, that's half the problem.

The market cant fix an old model. Tifs work great well applied correctly. Never use chicago as an example, unless you want to show how money can be wasted and poor management can lead to nothing. There is nothing wrong with the retail spender in deerfield. Its the space......trust me.

That whole area need to be torn down and redevloped. Any more tax incentatives is just a waste.

And i moved to highland park becuase its sad to watch deerfields decline by tax and spend liberals. I avoided lake cook and waukegan like the plauge.

Give me a Wal-Mart and watch Deerbrook come back to life.

Unfortunate on many levels! In the original opening blog, I doubted the viability of such a concept as it was one of those wonderful in concept and one their friends would say great idea but in this economy, which is just now beginning a long long recovery, not going to happen.

My guess is they had 3 months free rent which ended, alot of space to fill with inventory and bills were coming due, overly aggressive price points on quality stock. Having said that, it was a most interesting store that my 3 year old loved, unfortunately, her disposable cash is limited. Service was superb so they had that down!. Again, too bad but you need much more than a concept to be successful.

To those naysayers about Walmart, of which i am neither a fan or customer, I do know that they are fought every step of the way and then their stores are packed by those same opponents as they suck up the lower prices. As to local businesses, Walmart will not put a well run business out of business. It affects those that are not efficient, profitable for the wrong reasons and do not necessarily add value to a community. There are still many successful small operations in locations with Walmart with a value added component.

If Deerfield wants/needs tax dollars, so they can build an unneeded new library (because kids are going to read books and not iPads in the future), they should beg for a WalMart - when was the last time you saw an empty WalMart, never. Who in town would they harm ? We don't have many mom & pop stores, and the ones we have are boutiques selling $149 sweaters, not $14.99 ones.

The consistent comment heard thru-out the area was that the merchandise was way over-priced! Consumers are not looking for over-priced merchandise....quality merchandise priced right. Unfortunately I am not surprised they are closing.

One type of store that might have some legs in that location would be a real grocery store. How about a Mariano's? The Jewel there is terrible--old, small, and outdated. Of course no way another grocery store can come in with Jewel's lease in place. Just wishful thinking.

That store was a long time coming. I don't think I ever saw a single ad for it. From the outside who would know what they sold inside? No indication whatsoever.

No wonder! I mean geesh it sounded like a terrible concept from the first time it was reported. Whoever funded it to the extent it was should have had their head examined, or run for President. So much space, in such a terrible location, plus the underground parking...I always thought it's destiny should be a homeless shelter.

So many mistakes in town. Rec center should have gone at the Jewett center with the park behind it. Down town a joke. Library-14Million, really? Pile the snow at the highest point in the center mall so its wet until May and freezes nightly. Where is down town? North of Deerfield or south? North-South-East-West of 43 and Lake Cook? We only shop at NB ct and Whole Foods. Not worth the traffic.

The last thing we want in this town is another bleepin' TIF district. Keep in mind that the ones they had in downtown almost expired. The one where Deerfield Square is was in it's last few years when the developer stepped in. And for our efforts we got a tired old shopping center replaced with another shopping center that already looks dated, has some empty store fronts, has ridiculously small parking spaces, and like someone else pointed out, has snow piles in some of the parking spaces until May (Hell, I remember the developer promising the Board {Promising!!!} that he would haul the snow away. And every time I step in a run-off puddle that runs down the parking hill, I remember our current Mayor griping about the old Commons and how the water ran down the parking lot and won't this new development be so nice because that won't happen).

While this is a nice place to live, we have never had a board (or a community development office) with vision to go out and recruit decent retail and be innovative in how it's developed.

Is there a candidate out there with development experience in this area?

Please, please step up!! The town needs you. You'll have my vote.

From the impression I've been left with reading Patch, Sheyman might be able to organize Wonder! into a magnet homeless shelter for our region.

I would look outside the midwest as everyone will want a piece of the pie. The disaster the town built ten years ago is a joke. Spread it out like a boomerang and cover 95% of it in asphalt. If it was done right they could have made a market Sq. like LF. The library for 14million? I could do a new one for 6M and pocket 2M. Its no WONDER half the commercial space is empty in town and getting worse. I remember a trustee telling us a year ago air-conditioning at Wilmot would cost 10Million. We could do it for 4k a room. It's called a mini-split. This town is so full of idiots it will never change. Exact reason we r moving to LF!