Palatine hoping Caputo's will be taken over by grocer
Although Palatine's Joe Caputo & Sons Fruit Market will be on the auction block next month, the village's top administrator is hopeful the building will remain a grocery store.
"We're obviously concerned over what it means for the future of the center, it has been a very strong center," Village Manager Reid Ottesen said. "If it is going to change hands through an auction I hope the others see the value that it has and we continue to have a grocery store and a thriving center into the future."
The Caputo's is part of the Fox Fire Plaza at Hicks and Rand roads, a two-building retail center on 5.95 acres.
It will go to auction with other Joe Caputo properties, at 10 a.m. May 12 at the Hyatt Regency in Rosemont.
"We're hopeful that everything works out for the Caputo family as well as the center," Ottesen said. "I think (the store) has definitely demonstrated that there's a real market for not only the grocery store up there but for the other tenants."
Ottesen said if Fox Fire Plaza changes hands at the auction, Palatine looks forward to working with whoever the new owner is.
The other Joe Caputo holdings to be auctioned are a 67,550 square-foot grocery/retail building on 7.92 acres at 100 S. Randall Road in Algonquin and The Oaks Shopping Center, a 135,004-square-foot retail center on 15.08 acres at Lee and Oakton streets in Des Plaines.
The family-owned Joe Caputo grocery chain closed stores in Arlington Heights and Northbrook last year and the Elk Grove Village store in February.
Those stores were former Dominick's locations Caputo acquired in January 2014.
The closures followed a federal lawsuit alleging the store owes wholesalers more than $4.6 million in unpaid produce bills.
Chicago-based wholesaler Anthony Marano Co. sued for $3.6 million in unpaid produce since last June. Five other wholesalers have since added their names to the pending suit, alleging Caputo owes them $1 million.
The Palatine store, at 2070 N. Rand Road, is expected to remain open through the auction.