Hoffman Estates Mariano's hopes to add gas station

The Hoffman Estates Mariano's hopes to add a gas station separate from the store in the Hoffman Village Shopping Center on Golf Road.

The first step toward making that a reality came last week as company representatives tried to assure village officials that the store can afford to lose the parking spaces the gas station would replace.

Tim Kratz, a senior project manager at Downers Grove-based Sevan Multi-Site Solutions, said the intent is to make the gas station as invisible as possible to keep the visual focal point on the grocery store itself.

Not harming business at the store remains the top priority of Mariano's officials, Kratz said. A market study commissioned by the company determined that the gas station would be a good fit, and that the loss of 77 parking spaces was manageable, he said.

The shopping center parking lot has 776 shared parking spaces. Even with the loss of 10%, the supply would still exceed the standard of four spaces per 1,000 square feet of floor area for shopping centers under 400,000 square feet, according to the consultant's research.

The proposed gas station would be on 1.15 acres about 250 feet north of the Mariano's store and include a kiosk building that would be 265 square feet and a 19-foot-tall canopy.

Apart from expressing some reservations about the loss of parking, village board members did not offer any especially negative comments about the proposal.

Representatives of the project did not specifically say when a more detailed version would be filed with the village for formal review by its planning staff.