LITH gives thumbs-down to bank on Randall Road

The Lake in the Hills village board denied on Thursday night a request to build a bank with a drive-through on the site of the former Blockbuster on Randall Road.

Board members had already turned down the conditional use permit requested by Associated Bank at a committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday, after concerns about the bank’s design for a drive-through and potential difficulties in finding a tenant for the rest of the building, trustee Ray Bogdanowski said. The bank wanted to open a 4,000-square-foot facility at 208 N. Randall Road, or about half of the space previously occupied Blockbuster.

“Besides the fact that we don’t need another bank, and besides the fact that they were going to split the building in two and not fill the rest, the real issue here is that I don’t think they convinced anyone that the drive-through with that circle (design) was going to work,” he said.

Lake in the Hills Community Development Director Dan Olson said the drive-through’s horseshoe design requires precise movements by traffic to avoid encroaching onto other lanes. “The building wasn’t built for a drive-through bank. (Associated Bank was) trying to fit that into an area that wasn’t designed for it, and it didn’t appear to be a safe and a good design.”

Also, village staff and board members believe there wouldn’t be adequate parking for the remaining 4,000 square feet of the building, Olson said. The building is in the name of Amalgamated Trust & Savings, a trustee of National Shopping Plazas, Inc.

The Lake in the Hills planning and zoning commission also had recommended denial of the conditional use permit request.