(Above) Construction progress on Thursday at a convenience store being built at Marina City. Photo by Joe McCune. (Click on image to view larger version.)

January 31, 2015 – There is little official information being offered but residents of Marina City, who for ten months have been without one for the first time in 50 years, are seeing evidence that a small convenience store is being built.

The owners of three stores, each called South Loop Market, in business since 2009, are expanding to River North but for months they have refused to respond to numerous requests for updates or comment on issues with their building permit. A corrected permit had been displayed prominently near the main entrance to the new store but in recent days that has been taken down.

The general contractor, Copper Tree Construction Company, and Andy Bartucci, the commercial property manager at Marina City, have also not responded to invitations to update or clarify.

Now the store has applied for a liquor license. A corporation named “Handi Corp.” applied on January 21 with the city’s Local Liquor Control Commission.

Ownership is not perfectly clear. According to state records, Handi Corp. was incorporated on July 14, 2014, but neither the company’s president or secretary is listed.

According to the license application, the new store will be called “North Loop Market.”

State records show the owners of South Loop Market are Samir Kaman of Burbank, Illinois, southwest of Chicago, and Muhanad Hani Hammad of Bridgeview, Illinois, just west of Burbank. Together, they formed a corporation in 2011 named Kammad Corporation. Samir’s brother, Jamil, is also mentioned in published reports as a co-owner of the stores.