110-114 E Main St, Barrington: a downtown main-street mixed-use building whose ground floor housed the same tailor shop for roughly 75 years, with an apartment on the second floor. Jason Bitton sold it — the kind of generational asset that changes hands once in a working lifetime, and only makes full sense to a buyer who reads both of its stories: the storefront and the residence above it.
Some buildings are a rent roll. This one was a landmark of habit: a tailor shop that operated on the ground floor for roughly 75 years, with an apartment above it, in the middle of downtown Barrington’s Main Street. When a tenancy runs that long, the building and the business blur together — and that is exactly the problem when it comes time to sell. A buyer walking in sees one storefront and one long chapter closing, not the asset underneath.
There was a second wrinkle only locals catch: Barrington straddles the Cook–Lake county line, and E Main Street itself splits — 110-114 E Main sits on the Lake County side. Which county a downtown building lands in changes the tax picture a buyer underwrites, so even the address needed explaining.
The sale turned on repositioning the story. Strip away the nostalgia and 110-114 E Main is a two-income downtown asset: a retail storefront on the busiest walkable street in one of Chicagoland’s most affluent villages, plus a second-floor apartment — residential income that keeps paying no matter what happens at street level.
Told that way, the building speaks to two buyer pools at once. An owner-user can take the storefront for their own business and let the apartment help carry the mortgage. An investor sees a mixed-use property where ~75 years of one tenant isn’t an ending — it’s the longest possible proof that the corner works. Main Street buildings in downtown Barrington rarely trade; when one does, the marketing has to make both of those readers raise a hand.
The building sold. A downtown Barrington mixed-use property that had been defined by a single tenancy for three-quarters of a century moved to its next owner — with the retail floor and the apartment above it framed for what they are: a main-street asset with two ways to win, in a market where supply is measured in storefronts, not square miles.
“Seventy-five years of one tenant isn’t a risk — it’s the longest possible proof that the corner works.”
If you own a downtown building that one business has called home for decades — or you want to buy one — the deal turns on reframing, not just listing. Long tenancy, mixed uses, and small-town scarcity each change who the right buyer is and what they should pay.
Tell Jason the address — he’ll tell you what it’s worth, who the two or three real buyers are, and whether now is the moment. Confidential, and before anything hits the open market.
Looking to buy a downtown mixed-use asset instead? Same door: Get Started or call.