Carol Stream to get Caputo's grocery store, headquarters
A 70,000-square-foot Caputo's Fresh Markets grocery store will anchor a planned shopping center development at a prominent corner in Carol Stream.
The store will move into a 300,000-square-foot warehouse on the southwest corner of North Avenue and Schmale Road that will also include space for Caputo's corporate headquarters and distribution and production facilities.
The Carol Stream village board granted the necessary zoning approvals this week, paving the way for construction to begin. Caputo's officials expect the store to be complete by early next year.
The store will be on the northeast side of building, closest to the intersection, and will include an outdoor retail sales area for seasonal items.
It will be Caputo's seventh store in the Chicago area, following those in Addison, Bloomingdale, Elmwood Park, Hanover Park, Naperville and South Elgin.
The store will have a total of 329 parking spaces.
Caputo's corporate offices, relocating from Addison, will be on the building's second floor, and the warehouse and distribution center will be on the south end, where 13 truck docks are located.
The grocery store could help spur development at the 27-acre site owned by Caputo's, which planners are calling “Carol Stream Marketplace.” Preliminary plans call for construction of 10 outlot buildings that would front North and Schmale and have a total of 78,000 square feet for potential retail, restaurant and other commercial uses.
Those plans are subject to future zoning approvals because the size, number and locations of the buildings may change, according to Don Bastian, Carol Stream's assistant community development director.
“The preliminary plan shows a layout viewed by the village to be feasible — what could be built,” Bastian said. “Ultimately, over the next few years, the market will dictate the shape of the outlot development.”
The warehouse has been vacant since McKesson Corp., a pharmaceutical company, moved out six years ago. A development plan at the time, which received village approval, called for a scaled-down commercial/retail development, but that project never got off the ground.
The entire project could be in line to receive a portion of proceeds from a newly created tax increment financing district at North and Schmale should the village and Caputo's come to terms on an economic incentive agreement. Those talks have been ongoing for at least two years, and details on any final deal are unclear.
One possibility is a sales tax revenue-sharing arrangement — an economic incentive that's helped lure businesses such as Home Depot to town in the past.
The village staff is set to meet with Caputo's officials again this week.
Grocery: Economic incentives for Caputo's haven't been hammered out