Buffalo Grove weighs incentives to land Fresh Farms
Fresh Farms International Market is eyeing the former Dominick’s site at Buffalo Grove and Dundee roads, Buffalo Grove, as a potential location for a new grocery store.
The Buffalo Grove village board will consider an economic incentive plan at its Sept. 10 meeting that would help land the upscale market for the Cambridge Commons shopping center, at the southeast corner.
The 30,000-square-foot property currently houses Rogan’s Shoes and formerly was the site of Dominick’s, which moved to the northwest corner of the same intersection.
Under the plan, first introduced to the village board last week, the site’s owner would buy out existing leases within the center, allowing Rogan’s to relocate in a 10,000-square-foot space at its west end.
Nick Vittore of Svigos Asset Management, which operates Cambridge Commons, said his company plans to redevelop the site and lease it to Fresh Farms, along with two other tenants, including Rogan’s. The work would cost an estimated $16 million to $18 million.
“There has been a lot of back and forth with us and the village, trying to get this project going,” he said.
The project should generate between $28 million and $30 million in annual sales upon full operation, based on similar sales figures from Wheeling’s Fresh Farms store at Dundee Road and Milwaukee Avenue, said Vittore, whose company renovated that site last year.
He said there are no plans to renovate the space in Buffalo Grove along similar lines.
The incentive package would involve the village sharing with the developer its portion of the retailers occupation tax and the sales tax over the first 15 years of the project. Based on expected sales tax revenues of about $4.4 million, that proposal would yield $1.5 million to the developer and $2.8 million to the village.
The village also would reimburse up to $20,000 in building permit fees.
Village Manager Dane Bragg said officials hope to stimulate redevelopment of Cambridge Commons.
“We are looking at the entire (Dundee Road) corridor,” he said. “That area generally is the oldest retail corridor (in the village).”
Village President Jeffrey Braiman said he welcomes the renovations.
“That’s been a tired shopping center for a long, long time,” he said. “I think it will help not only that shopping center but also the entire corridor.”
“It is unfortunate that we have to even talk about tax incentives,” he added. “But that’s the way of life with villages and municipalities and developers these days. The alternative is for developers to walk away and try to get them from some other villages.”
“It is unfortunately a fact of life that we have to live with.”