Seeking more business recruitment wins in Grayslake
Michael Stewart says he hopes his diligent business recruitment efforts start leading to more victories for Grayslake.
Stewart has been a one-man recruitment band as Grayslake Business Partnership's managing director. The group is a nonprofit, public-private initiative seeking to lure new businesses to the village.
"We're pretty proud of the amount of work that we've accomplished," Stewart said while delivering an annual report to the advisory Grayslake Economic Development Commission.
Village board Trustee Shawn Vogel, who doubles as an economic development commission member, acknowledged a lack of business construction activity in Grayslake. He said he hopes to see the recruitment work result in business projects.
"It seems like there's nothing going on, but he (Stewart) is putting a tremendous amount of time and effort into things," Vogel said.
In reviewing some of the organization's accomplishments during the past year, Stewart said one was an incentive package to attract Butera Market to a roughly 30,000-square-foot vacant space in a shopping center on the southeast corner of Atkinson Road and Center Street.
Butera would fill the spot most recently occupied by Farmers Market Place, which closed after operating for a few months in 2013. Stewart helped to craft the economic incentive package potentially worth $750,000 to Butera.
Stewart said Butera Market is expected to open late this year. He said Butera would fill a significant void for the village, which has a Jewel-Osco on the southwest corner of Route 120 and Atkinson as its lone supermarket.
On the industrial side, four manufacturing companies that received proposals about locating in Grayslake remain interested in building facilities from 150,000 to 350,000 square feet. Stewart said available property in the Peterson Road corridor on Grayslake's south side should be attractive to manufacturers.
After saying he wants to report more commercial recruitment victories this year, Stewart lamented how marketing work has yet to translate into retail development at the former Lake County Fairgrounds and a 5-acre site across the street from the Jewel-Osco. He said he has taken on development of the 5 acres near Route 120 and Atkinson Road, considered a suitable mid-sized retail property, as a pet project.
"It's a prime location from a retail perspective," Stewart said. "The first six months of last year when we were marketing it, we got great retailer interest, developer interest, and it all just kind of fizzled out. But that was one thing that if we were going to be celebrating a win this year, that was going to be the easiest one that we celebrate."