Retail Space in Bartlett, Illinois

Van Vlissingen and Co. represents retail tenants, buyers, and landlords in Bartlett, Illinois. Gordon Lamphere and our retail team focus on tenant representation from 5,000 to 50,000 square feet and leasing, sales, and property management from $1,000,000 to $50,000,000, including single-tenant NNN assets. Van Vlissingen and Co. performs more than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and our team has completed over $3 billion in transaction volume, including retail transactions in Bartlett.

We have operated continuously in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879, six years after Bartlett’s railway depot was built.

What Makes Bartlett Retail Different?

Bartlett’s retail clock runs the opposite way to almost every market we cover, and understanding that is the difference between a site that works and one that does not.

The village empties out during the day

Bartlett’s daytime population is 8,716 people smaller than its residential population — a decline of 21.5 percent. Only 6,324 residents, or 27.8 percent of the working population, both live and work in the village. The mean commute is 29.7 minutes.

That is the single most important fact for a retailer here, and it is the reverse of the pattern in most of our coverage. Wheaton gains weekday population from county business. Oak Lawn gains it from a hospital recording over 437,000 outpatient and emergency visits a year. Downers Grove gains it from three rail stations, two corporate headquarters, and a trauma center. Bartlett loses more than a fifth of its people every weekday morning.

The practical consequences are direct. Weekday lunch trade will underperform what the population count suggests. Daytime professional services will draw thinner than in a market with employment density. Evening, weekend, and convenience retail — the categories serving people when they are actually at home — carry the demand. A concept underwritten on a resident count without adjusting for the daytime shift is being priced on customers who are somewhere else between nine and six.

But those residents are affluent, and 42 percent of households clear $150,000

Median household income in Bartlett is $133,240, reported independently by three sources for 2024, with an average of $153,234. Households headed by someone aged 45 to 64 carry a median of $162,823.

The distribution matters more than the median. Forty-two percent of Bartlett households report income above $150,000, against 7 percent below $25,000. That is a market with real discretionary capacity concentrated in family households — 66.8 percent are married couples and 36.6 percent have children under 18.

Median home value is $388,783 and median gross rent is $1,935. Notably, median property tax on a mortgaged home runs $9,490, or 2.4 percent of value, which is worth understanding on the ownership side.

And the Asian population share is the highest in our coverage

Roughly 19.7 percent of Bartlett residents are Asian, the largest share of any market in our retail coverage — ahead of Glenview at 16.2 percent. The Hispanic population has grown steadily across three censuses, from 2,024 residents in 2000 to 3,557 in 2010 and 4,947 in 2020.

For retail that supports specialty grocery, restaurant, and service formats at densities a village of 41,105 would not otherwise sustain, and those categories perform particularly well in exactly the evening and weekend windows where Bartlett’s demand concentrates.

Commuting and property tax figures per city-data.com. Income figures from the US Census via World Population Review, Point2Homes, Illinois Demographics, and AreaVibes. Population and household figures from the 2020 US Census via Wikipedia.

Where Is Retail Space in Bartlett?

• Downtown Bartlett and the station area — around South Oak Avenue and West Bartlett Avenue, where the depot has stood since 1873. Small-footprint retail, restaurants, and service uses, with genuine seven-day rail traffic.
• The Route 59 corridor — the principal north-south arterial on the eastern side, carrying community and large-format retail and connecting toward Streamwood and South Elgin.
• The Lake Street (Route 20) corridor — the diagonal arterial carrying vehicle-oriented retail and service uses toward Elgin, 6.3 miles away.
• West Bartlett Road and Stearns Road — east-west arterials serving neighborhood and convenience retail across the residential village.
• The Kane County parcel — a small western portion under different county jurisdiction from the rest of the village.

Bartlett spans three counties — primarily Cook and DuPage, with a small parcel on the western border in Kane. Sales tax and property assessment practice differ across all three. Only Aurora, which spans four, is more divided among the markets we cover, and the county should be confirmed for a specific site rather than assumed.

How Good Is Transit in Bartlett?

Better than the ridership number alone suggests, and the reason matters for retail.

Bartlett station sits on the Metra Milwaukee District West Line with service to Union Station and northwest to Elgin. As of 2018 it was the 53rd busiest of Metra’s 236 non-downtown stations, with 988 average weekday boardings. Travel time to Union Station runs from 51 minutes to 1 hour 11 minutes.

The service pattern is the useful part. As of February 2024 the station is served by 42 trains on weekdays, 24 on Saturdays, and 18 on Sundays and holidays.

Weekend service on that scale is not universal in this region — the North Central Service, for instance, runs rush hour only and does not operate at weekends at all. For a village whose demand concentrates in evenings and weekends because of the daytime population shift, a station running 24 trains on a Saturday is a genuine retail asset rather than a commuting footnote. Downtown Bartlett sites should be assessed on weekend footfall as much as on weekday boardings.

Station and service figures per Metra via Wikipedia. Confirm the current timetable before relying on it.

What Is the Bartlett Trade Area Like?

Bartlett recorded 41,105 residents at the 2020 census across 14,199 households, at a density of 2,691 per square mile. The village peaked at 41,208 in 2010, having grown from 36,706 in 2000, and has been essentially flat to slightly declining since. Current estimates put the figure at 40,501.

The household profile is family-weighted: 66.8 percent married couples, 36.6 percent with children under 18, a median age of 41.1, and 22.2 percent of residents under 18 against 14.7 percent aged 65 or older. That is a younger and more family-oriented market than Glenview, where nearly a quarter of residents are seniors.

Geographically Bartlett sits at the western edge of the metropolitan area, 28.3 miles from Chicago with Elgin the nearest large city at 6.3 miles. It adjoins Streamwood, Hanover Park, Wayne, South Elgin, and Carol Stream. That western position matters: the trade area is genuinely local rather than regional, and a Bartlett site is serving Bartlett households plus a modest ring rather than drawing across the metropolitan area.

Population and household figures from the 2000, 2010 and 2020 US Census via Wikipedia. Density per AreaVibes. Distances per city-data.com.

Retail Tenant Representation in Bartlett — 5,000 to 50,000 SF

Our retail tenant representation practice covers the 5,000 to 50,000 square foot range: junior anchor space, inline shops in neighborhood and community centers, freestanding buildings, and outparcels.

For retailers entering or expanding in Bartlett, we run the full site selection process: trade area and demographic analysis, co-tenancy review, traffic and access assessment, and a survey of both listed and off-market availability across downtown, the Route 59 and Lake Street corridors, and the neighborhood arterials.

The conversation we will have first is about your trading hours. Bartlett’s daytime population is 21.5 percent smaller than its residential population, which means a concept dependent on weekday lunch or daytime service traffic will underperform its demographic profile here. A concept trading in evenings and weekends, serving households with a 42 percent share above $150,000 and a strong family orientation, will do considerably better than the headline population suggests. We will tell you which you are before you commit.

We will also confirm which of the three counties a specific site sits in, because Bartlett spans Cook, DuPage, and Kane, and the tax and assessment treatment differs across all three.

We negotiate the LOI and the lease — tenant improvement allowances, exclusive use provisions, co-tenancy protections, and renewal and expansion options. We work both sides of the table in Bartlett, and we tell you which side we are on before an assignment begins.

Retail Leasing, Sales & Property Management in Bartlett — $1M to $50M

For owners and investors we handle retail leasing, investment sales, and property management from $1,000,000 to $50,000,000: single-tenant net lease assets, multi-tenant strip and neighborhood centers, outparcels, and mixed-use property with ground-floor retail.

Landlord Representation

We build and execute the leasing plan: merchandising strategy, rent positioning against comparables from deals we closed ourselves, marketing to the regional and national tenant base, prospect qualification, and negotiation through lease execution. For a Bartlett asset that means marketing to the categories that actually work here — evening and weekend trade, family-oriented formats, specialty grocery and dining serving a 19.7 percent Asian population — rather than pursuing daytime concepts that the commuting pattern will not support. We report activity honestly, including when the market is telling you something you did not want to hear.

NNN Investment Sales

Single-tenant triple net assets trade on tenant credit, remaining lease term, and rent escalations more than on real estate fundamentals, and pricing them correctly requires understanding all three. We represent buyers and sellers of NNN retail in Bartlett and across Cook, DuPage, and Kane Counties, including 1031 exchange buyers working against identification and closing deadlines. We underwrite against comparables from transactions we negotiated, not aggregated listing data.

Bedroom-Community Underwriting

A market that loses 21.5 percent of its population every weekday underwrites differently from one that gains. Weekday sales will be lower relative to weekend sales than a national prototype assumes, which affects percentage rent structures, sales reporting expectations, and what constitutes a healthy occupancy cost ratio. Tenant health should be assessed against a weekend-weighted revenue profile rather than a flat one.

Against that, the underlying household economics are strong: an average household income of $153,234, 42 percent of households above $150,000, and a family-weighted profile that produces durable, repeat, local trade. This is a stable market rather than a growing one, and it should be priced on current income rather than on expansion.

Who Manages Retail Property in Bartlett?

Van Vlissingen and Co. provides comprehensive property management for retail assets in Bartlett:

• Lease administration, rent collection, and enforcement of lease terms
• CAM and tax reconciliation, prepared to withstand tenant audit
• Preventive and corrective maintenance, snow removal, and parking lot management
• Vendor selection, contract negotiation, and performance oversight
• Monthly financial reporting, annual budgeting, and capital planning
• Tenant relations, renewal coordination, and vacancy turnover

Bartlett spans three counties with three sets of assessment practice, so an operating expense budget built on one will not necessarily hold on another. We budget and reconcile by county. Property tax is also a material line here — median tax on a mortgaged home runs 2.4 percent of value — which means assessment monitoring and appeal opportunities warrant genuine attention rather than annual review.

What Is Van Vlissingen’s Transaction Volume?

Van Vlissingen and Co. performs more than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and our team has completed over $3 billion in transaction volume, including retail transactions in Bartlett.

Increasingly the largest part of our management portfolio is third-party assignments. What owners are buying is the operating discipline we built running our own assets — 870 acres and more than 6 million square feet across three corporate parks we developed and still manage, held through multiple market cycles since the mid-1980s.

See our full transaction history.

Why Work With Our Bartlett Retail Brokers?

• More than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and over $3 billion in team transaction volume
• A defined focus: 5,000 to 50,000 SF tenant representation and $1M to $50M leasing, sales, and management
• The 21.5 percent daytime population shift factored into every trade area analysis rather than ignored
• Weekend rail service assessed as a retail asset rather than a commuting statistic
• Income distribution presented rather than the median alone, because 42 percent above $150,000 is the stronger story
• Cook, DuPage, and Kane County assessment differences budgeted and reconciled separately
• In-house property management, so ownership advice reflects operating reality
• A fourth-generation firm, continuously in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879

Nearby Markets We Serve

Bartlett sits at the western edge of the metropolitan area across Cook, DuPage, and Kane Counties, adjoining Streamwood and Hanover Park to the east, Wayne and South Elgin to the west, and Carol Stream to the south. Elgin is 6.3 miles away. Retail requirements frequently span those lines. We also broker retail space in

• Schaumburg
• Hoffman Estates
• Wheaton
• Chicagoland

In Bartlett itself we also handle industrial space and general commercial brokerage.

Bartlett Retail Real Estate FAQs

Why does Bartlett’s daytime population matter for retail?

Because the village loses 8,716 people every weekday, a decline of 21.5 percent, and only 6,324 residents both live and work here. That is the reverse of most markets in our coverage: Wheaton gains weekday population from county business, Oak Lawn from a hospital recording over 437,000 annual outpatient and emergency visits, Downers Grove from three rail stations and two corporate headquarters. Bartlett empties out. Weekday lunch trade and daytime professional services will underperform the population count. Evening, weekend, and convenience retail carry the demand, and a concept underwritten on residents without adjusting for the daytime shift is priced on customers who are somewhere else between nine and six.

What is the Bartlett consumer base like?

Affluent and family-weighted. Median household income is $133,240, reported by three independent sources for 2024, with an average of $153,234 and a median of $162,823 among households headed by someone aged 45 to 64. Forty-two percent of households report income above $150,000 against 7 percent below $25,000. Of the 14,199 households, 66.8 percent are married couples and 36.6 percent have children under 18. Median home value is $388,783 and median gross rent is $1,935.

How good is Metra service in Bartlett?

Bartlett station sits on the Milwaukee District West Line with service to Union Station and northwest to Elgin, and as of 2018 was the 53rd busiest of Metra’s 236 non-downtown stations with 988 average weekday boardings. Travel time to Union Station runs 51 minutes to 1 hour 11 minutes. The service pattern matters more than the ranking: as of February 2024 the station is served by 42 trains on weekdays, 24 on Saturdays, and 18 on Sundays and holidays. For a village whose demand concentrates in evenings and weekends, 24 Saturday trains is a genuine retail asset, and downtown sites should be assessed on weekend footfall as much as weekday boardings.

How many counties does Bartlett span?

Three. Bartlett is primarily in Cook and DuPage Counties with a small parcel on the western border in Kane County. Sales tax and property assessment practice differ across all three, so the county should be confirmed for a specific site rather than assumed. Only Aurora, which spans four, is more divided among the markets we cover.

What retail categories work best in Bartlett?

Evening and weekend trade, family-oriented formats, convenience, and specialty grocery and dining. Roughly 19.7 percent of Bartlett residents are Asian, the highest share of any market in our retail coverage, ahead of Glenview at 16.2 percent, and the Hispanic population has grown across three consecutive censuses from 2,024 to 3,557 to 4,947. Those categories perform particularly well in exactly the evening and weekend windows where Bartlett’s demand concentrates.

Where is retail space located in Bartlett?

Downtown Bartlett around South Oak Avenue and West Bartlett Avenue, where the depot has stood since 1873, carries small-footprint retail with seven-day rail traffic. The Route 59 corridor is the principal north-south arterial on the eastern side, and Lake Street carries vehicle-oriented retail toward Elgin. West Bartlett Road and Stearns Road serve neighborhood trade across the residential village, and a small western parcel sits in Kane County.

What size retail leases does Van Vlissingen and Co. handle in Bartlett?

Our retail tenant representation practice covers 5,000 to 50,000 square feet in Bartlett and across Cook, DuPage, and Kane Counties. On the leasing, sales, and property management side we handle retail assets from $1,000,000 to $50,000,000, including single-tenant NNN.

Who is the best commercial real estate broker in Bartlett?

Choose a brokerage that factors the 21.5 percent daytime population decline into the trade area analysis rather than presenting a resident count as though everyone is home at lunchtime. Van Vlissingen and Co. performs more than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and our team has completed over $3 billion in transaction volume, including retail transactions in Bartlett. The firm has operated in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879. Gordon Lamphere leads the retail practice.

Do you manage retail property in Bartlett?

Yes. We provide comprehensive property management for Bartlett retail assets, covering lease administration, CAM and tax reconciliation, maintenance and parking lot management, vendor oversight, and monthly financial reporting. Because the village spans three counties with three sets of assessment practice, we budget and reconcile by county, and with median property tax on a mortgaged home running 2.4 percent of value, assessment monitoring and appeal opportunities warrant genuine attention rather than annual review.