A group of business students and two marketing professors from DePaul University are conducting a study of retail shopping in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago at the request of business and community organizations in the area.

The Wrightwood Neighbors Conservation Association and the Sheffield Neighborhood Association asked DePaul to conduct the study to help the Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce take the first step toward creating a retail strategy for the area.

The North Side neighborhood encompasses a diverse mix of businesses, from bars, restaurants and theaters on Lincoln Avenue, to boutiques on Halsted and Armitage avenues and “big box” retailers on Clybourn Avenue. Business and neighborhood leaders want to develop strategies for managing thorny retail issues facing the upscale community, such as growing competition between traditional “mom and pop” businesses and national chain stores, said Tom Fuechtmann, DePaul’s executive director of community and government relations.

“The goal of the study is to help the community shared by DePaul and our neighbors, and, at the same time, provide students with a valuable learning experience involving real issues facing business people and consumers in one of Chicago’s busiest areas,” he said.

Marketing Professor Philip Kemp and Assistant Professor of Marketing David Aron are directing the project involving the 22 honors students in the marketing management class they co-teach. The study started in January and is expected to be completed by mid-March.

The study will be based on the results of a survey of shopping habits, retail preferences and demographics that has been distributed by the study team to 5,000 community residents, students, and employees of DePaul and Children’s Memorial Hospital, the neighborhood’s two biggest institutions. Results of the survey will be entered by the student researchers into a database, which will be used to extract information for a final report.

About 500 completed surveys have been returned by mid-February. “That’s a good return so far,” Aron said. “People realize how important this is. They realize that retail issues affect the everyday lives of people who live in the neighborhood and that new businesses moving into the area will be their neighbors.”

To help students get in touch with the issues they are studying, the professors took the class on a walking tour of the neighborhood’s retail areas in January. Kemp, whose relationship with DePaul and Lincoln Park stretches 34 years—from his days as a student to his current professorship at the university—led the tour. Pointing out empty stores on some streets and the proliferation of competing businesses on others, he peppered the students with questions to ponder, such as, “Is this the best use of this retail space?” and “Do you think this is the type of business the neighborhood needs?”

Aron said that examining real businesses and their effect on a community brings class lessons alive for students. “I used to have classes where I’d make up a business and ask students to come up with a marketing plan,” he said. “The same ideas would be suggested from year to year. This project is more challenging, but it’s also more real and rewarding for the students.”

Terri Schroeder, 20, a DePaul junior working on the study, agreed. “This is a much better project because it’s more personal to us and relevant to our lives,” said the marketing major, who lives in Lincoln Park. “I never noticed the vacancies or knew about the demographics or the history of Lincoln Park until we started this project.”