Lincolnshire to get first grocery store, should open in 2013
Lincolnshire’s mayor hopes newly approved plans for the village’s first grocery store will lead to more activity in the developing downtown area.
“A grocery store tends to draw people in and bring a community together, much like a train station,” Mayor Brett Blomberg said Wednesday, two days after the village board approved plans for the Fresh Market store.
Plans call for a roughly 23,000-square-foot store on the northeast corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Half Day Road. A separate building that would house a restaurant is planned for the site, too.
The 7-acre site, which is vacant now, wraps around a Marathon gas station near the corner. That station will remain.
Fresh Market officials want to break ground in October and open by the end of May 2013, according to a village memo.
The village board had hired a consultant to seek a grocery store chain that would be right for the site, Trustee David Saltiel said.
Now that the deal is done, Saltiel said he’s ecstatic.
“It’s what the residents asked for, it’s what we aggressively pursued, and now we’re getting close to the finish line,” he said.
Lincolnshire has been without a grocery store since the town incorporated in 1957. Residents generally shop at supermarkets in nearby Vernon Hills, Buffalo Grove or Lake Forest, Blomberg said.
The village had owned the site where the store will be built. As part of the development deal, the village agreed to sell about 4 acres to the Inland Real Estate Corp., which will lease it to Fresh Market.
The sale price was about $1.1 million, village officials said.
The village still owns about 5 acres at the corner, he said.
Village officials have been working for years to develop a commercial downtown core along Milwaukee Avenue. The Village Green Shopping Center at Route 45 was seen as a key element.
Plans are being developed for a pedestrian bridge that would allow people to walk to the grocery store and the rest of the downtown area, as well as a green space where people could gather or rest in the area, Blomberg said.
“It’s coming together,” he said.