Apartments, retail for Kmart site to get chance in Lake Zurich
Preliminary plans for apartments and a retail development to replace a long-vacant Kmart will get a chance in Lake Zurich.
At a meeting Monday night, village trustees and Mayor Thomas Poynton heard from Mark Hoffman of Garden Homes Management Corp., which owns the roughly 7-acre Rand Road site. The Kmart closed in 2002, and the building has been empty since then.
After an informal courtesy review of the plan, five of six trustees agreed it is worthy enough to enter the official village approval process. The next stop for Garden Homes will be the advisory planning and zoning commission.
Garden Homes would demolish the Kmart and replace it with three 4-story apartment buildings. There would be indoor parking for the one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units from 910 to 1,680 square feet.
In addition to the 175 apartment units, the project as proposed would have 21,615 square feet of retail space.
"At this point, these are general numbers," said Hoffman, the company's development director. "We're looking to fine-tune those. We're in the very close ballpark. We've had enough analysis where we think it's the right size.
"It's the right amount of retail and dovetails with what's there so that we can lease it. It's not overly competitive with our neighbors, and at the same time it compliments the residential use we propose as well for this site."
Trustee Jonathan Sprawka said he has concerns about whether that would be enough green space for the apartment tenants, but overall he was pleased to see the tentative proposal.
"That's probably on the top-five list of what folks ask about," Sprawka said of the Kmart site. "'What are you doing about X, what are you doing about Y and what are you doing about the Kmart?'"
Trustee Jeffrey Halen didn't favor the proposal entering the village's approval process. He raised several questions about the plan, including whether water problems in the area would be too high of a hurdle to clear.
Garden Homes representatives began talking to Lake Zurich officials in late summer about the possibility of the Kmart site redevelopment.
Kmart operated on Rand Road for about 20 years until it was closed. Lake Zurich was part of Kmart's closure of 283 stores throughout the country in 2002, including 14 in the Chicago area.
When the Lake Zurich Kmart closed, a Chicago-area real estate expert told the Daily Herald the building was "old and tired" and should be demolished.
An informal proposal for the Kmart property never went anywhere after surfacing in 2007. That plan from a Barrington developer called for a 430,000-square-foot complex with a luxury hotel, restaurants, condominiums, stores and a health spa.