Ziegler’s Ace Hardware, a fixture in Carpentersville’s Meadowdale Shopping Center for 41 years, is closing. It’s the second in the company’s chain to go out of business this year.
The store’s last day will be determined by how quickly it is able to sell its remaining merchandise through a liquidation sale, company President Adam Ziegler said. He owns the business with his father, David Ziegler.
“Sales have been declining steadily over quite a few years,” Adam Ziegler said. “It has just gotten to the point it’s so low that the store is not sustainable.”
It’s the second Ace to be closed by the Ziegler family this year. The first was the Elgin store on Lillian Street, which shut its doors this spring after 44 years.
“Both those stores were trending lower year after year after year,” Ziegler said. “Both stores were 40-plus years old, and shopping trends changed over the years.”
Competition from other stores and online purchases combined with increasing costs took a toll, he said.
“I was kind of waiting to see how the year went but sales continue to decline,” he said. “I have no more plans to close any other store.”
The 10 people employed at the Carpentersville store will be offered jobs at the eight remaining locations in downtown Elgin, South Elgin, Bartlett, Cary, Crystal Lake, Huntley, Lake in the Hills and Roscoe.
“It’s always sad when I have to make a decision to close a store,” Ziegler said. “(But) we’ll be able to take our attention and resources (that we have been putting) into these stores that have continued to decline and put them into stores that are remaining.”
The chain’s history dates back to 1930, when Zieger’s great-grandfather, Lyle, bought an existing hardware store in Elgin. It became an Ace store in 1934. Lyle’s sons, Gregg and Jim, ran the company from the 1950s through the 1980s before handing it off Lyle’s grandsons, Brian and David, who were in charge from the 1980s to the mid-2000s.
Adam Ziegler took over the business in 2020, and his son, David, is now the company president.
Ace rents the space at the Meadowdale Shopping Center, which dates back to 1955, when developer Leonard W. Besinger built the strip mall — one of the largest of its kind at the time. It started with 14 stores, and eventually added another 40 commercial spaces, according to published reports.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.