Huntley aims to open new retail incubators in time for 2025 holiday season

Huntley is planning to open its new business incubator shops in time for the 2025 holiday retail season.

The Shops on Main incubator is expected to kick off with a winter market starting Nov. 1 and stay open through Dec. 21. The stores will reopen May 1, 2026, and stay open through Dec. 20, 2026, for the main season.

Leases then would run from early May to the December holiday season moving forward, Melissa Stocker, Huntley’s development manager, told the Village Board on Thursday.

The Hackett House near the Main Street/Route 47 intersection in downtown Huntley is the home base for the shops. Naturally McHenry County is currently based in the Hackett House but is moving to the Old Courthouse in Woodstock. The Old Courthouse is home to Woodstock’s incubator program.

In Huntley, four shops and public restrooms will be located inside the Hackett House, while five shops will be located outside, Stocker said Thursday.

Construction will start this spring and wrap up this fall, Stocker said.

Once opened, stores will need to operate from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday. They generally aren’t allowed to be open outside of those hours, but guidelines stipulate that the businesses will need to operate during community events, including the Tuesday Concerts on the Square during the summer months and the Huntley Hootenanny Glow 5K in September.

Proprietors will pay $2,500 for the lease for the first season and also are required to pay a refundable $500 security deposit. Applicants will be on the hook for a $100 nonrefundable application fee, which is intended to demonstrate serious interest in the program, Stocker said.

Interested retailers also need to submit a business plan that should include current sales and expense information and projected sales and expense information based on running a space in the incubator.

The program strives to give a boost to local businesses and perhaps connect them with a permanent storefront in town, Stocker said. Entrepreneurs also will have access to business education, networking opportunities and marketing help as part of the program.

“This initiative aims to support local businesses and enhance the downtown experience for residents,” Stocker said.

Each year, the Village Board will go through and decide which vendors will have a space that season; existing retailers will get the chance to reapply.

Stocker said village officials are not stipulating a maximum number of seasons a business can stay in the shop at this point, noting that other communities have found success allowing retailers to stay in the incubator for two years to gain momentum before moving to a brick-and-mortar storefront.

Trustee Vito Benigno said he was concerned that having vendors stay for too many seasons contradicted the point of the incubator.

Trustee Ric Zydorowicz brought up concerns over having too many of the same businesses in the incubator.

Village President Tim Hoeft said that in the real world, CVS and Walgreens often like to be right next to each other.

“Competition is not a bad thing,” Hoeft said, adding “we need variety.”

Trustee J.R. Westberg noted that there’s five places downtown where people can go to get a hamburger.

Zydorowicz said trying to limit competition might be the boost the small businesses need.

On Thursday, the Village Board approved some guidelines for the program. Among the guidelines is that businesses must be a local, independently owned retailer. Home businesses, online businesses or existing enterprises from other communities looking to test out Huntley are eligible for the program.

Food preparation will not be allowed at the stores. Vendors also have to report all sales made in Huntley.

Huntley is the third town in McHenry County to have an incubator program, following in the footsteps of McHenry and Woodstock, but Huntley’s setup combines the two other cities’ approaches. Woodstock’s incubator is located inside the Old Courthouse, while McHenry’s small Riverwalk Shoppes downtown house the incubator retailers.

The Huntley incubator project received a $975,000 grant from U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood’s office. Underwood represented much of McHenry County before redistricting.

The grant dollars have to be spent by the end of the year, according to village records. The Village Board is expected to vote on the project budget in the coming weeks.