Cooper's Hawk, Starbucks pitched for St. Charles mall site
The ability of two new tenants at Charlestowne Mall to create a resurgence in retail at the struggling shopping center will remain a question until they open. But St. Charles aldermen took heart Monday night in learning at least one of the new tenants will bring dozens of jobs and a unique club to the city.
Representatives from Cooper's Hawk Winery and Restaurant pitched architectural plans to aldermen Monday night. The plan calls for a new location, the company's ninth, on an outlot at the mall.
Cooper's Hawk is the fifth largest winery outside California. It has a wine club with 175,000 members.
The new St. Charles location would open in March or April 2017. It will employ 150 people and create new contracts for facilities management with 12 other local companies. The other eight locations draw about 5,000 guests per week. That results in sales of up to $8 million a year.
City officials haven't seen those numbers coming out of the mall in years. Mall ownership, which has renamed the property The Quad, is hoping the Cooper's Hawk signing will draw new retail interest in the property.
A new Starbucks location is also slated for an outlot just off the main mall access from Route 64.
Both the signings couldn't come at a better time. The mostly vacant mall is set to lose one of its last remaining anchor tenants. Kohl's last day of business at The Quad will be June 19.
Aldermen showed they are eager to see any of the long-stalled improvements at the mall come to life Monday. The building plans for the new Cooper's Hawk Winery and Restaurant don't technically meet some of the exterior aesthetic requirements called for in city code, but city staff members said it would be possible to reinterpret the code to make the plans measure up with no adjustments.
Aldermen quickly signed off on that suggestion with no objections Monday.
The arrival of Cooper's Hawk and Starbucks mean two of the five outlots created by the new mall owners will have tenants.
A major portion of the vision the Krausz Companies pitched to the city when it acquired the property involved drawing customers to the indoor mall by placing high-volume attractions on newly created outlots with more visibility from the traffic on Route 64.