Editorial: Should Rolling Meadows consider a park at Dominick's site?

Permit us to suggest something outlandish here:

How about a park?

For more than a decade, Rolling Meadows has grappled with the closing of the old Dominick's Finer Foods store on the south side of Kirchoff Road.

The grocery store was shuttered in 2004, followed soon after by the closings or relocations of virtually all the other tenants in the strip shopping center.

For more than 10 years, city officials have tried to attract another grocer. Two years ago, it looked at last like they may have found one. An Uncle Joe's market was announced, and the news created quite a buzz. But then the project fell through.

Suddenly, no more buzz. Just a continuing eyesore.

Ask Mayor Tom Rooney how often his constituents ask about the abandoned Dominick's store, and he'll tell you “Every single day.” When he is out among the public, it's almost always the first issue the comes up.

For those not familiar with Rolling Meadows, it began as a Kimball Hill bedroom community 60 years ago. And like a lot of bedroom suburbs, it has a lot going for it, but the one thing it lacks is a traditional downtown — the kind that gives a town its sense of identity and its people a sense of community.

The corridor along Kirchoff provides Rolling Meadows with a signature of sorts. There are a couple of churches, the police station, the Jewel-anchored strip shopping center on the north side of the street.

The corridor is home each summer to Cornfest. It's where Crawford's used to be. And the bowling alley. A classic car show draws interest there regularly. The street is dotted so beautifully with lights each Christmas season that it takes your breath away.

The Kirchoff corridor is the closest thing to a center of town there is.

Now, after more than 10 years of scuttlebutt about the Dominick's and the retailers who will be lured to replace it, developers have all but given up on the idea of a supermarket.

The property has been put up for sale. There's talk about all sorts of things going in there.

To all that talk, we ask something outlandish: How about a park?

Just imagine what an innovative designer with a park as his canvas could do to integrate the retail and iconic history — what ideas could be born to create something unique and special. Just imagine what something like that could do to make the center of town the center of a community.

And ask yourself: How about a park?