River Street property purchased by Bandito Barney's owner
The fate of a vacant property in downtown East Dundee has been up in the air for months.
After an empty house was demolished on 110 N. River St. last fall, a mixed-use development was first proposed for the site by a group of private investors. When that project fell through, village officials considered purchasing it, creating a temporary parking lot and marketing the site for future redevelopment.
Now, the property has been purchased by a local bar owner who declined to comment on his plans for the lot, though village officials say he intends to use it for parking.
According to Kane County property records, Big Kahuna Corporation, which owns Bandito Barney's Beach Club and Bordello, bought the 0.46-acre property this month for $210,000.
The seller was River Street, LLC, the group of investors who had obtained the site last year in hopes of developing it into a four-story, 20,000-square-foot building with retail and residential units. East Dundee officials later rejected the plans for the building, saying its size wouldn't fit the character of the downtown.
The village board voted in March to purchase the site for $175,000. At the time, Village President Lael Miller said other parties had expressed interest in buying the property with the intention of making it a permanent parking lot, but East Dundee wanted to be able to control its future development.
That decision was criticized by some local investors, including Big Kahuna President Roger Shelton.
"Why would the village spend $175,000 to buy property for a parking lot that was going to be donated to the village with the only stipulation being that it be used for free public parking?" he said in a March email to Trustee Allen Skillicorn. "Seems wasteful."
In April, River Street, LLC, requested an additional $26,500 from the village for site preparation. Village trustees said no, though East Dundee officials and the developer remained in negotiations until Shelton made an offer on the site, Miller said.
"We decided it'd be in everybody's best interest for him to purchase that," he said.
Though the property will likely become designated parking space, Miller said, he is unsure of the details. Shelton said Thursday he is "not able to discuss it at this time" and could not be reached Monday.
Otto Engineering President Tom Roeser, who has advocated for more downtown parking, said he has reached out to Shelton about his ideas for developing the lot for parking purposes.
"(Shelton) is a smart businessman, and he knows that the success of his business depends on parking," he said. "This should be public parking."