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Mount Prospect officials optimistic about downtown development plan

Mount Prospect will be holding a neighborhood meeting this week to discuss a new mixed-use development planned for the key downtown area known as the Busse or small triangle.

Village Manager Michael Cassady said the meeting is slated for 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17, at Brick City Tavern, 34 S. Main St., within the triangle bounded by Main Street, Busse Avenue, Northwest Highway and Wille Street.

The development would consist of luxury apartments with ground-floor retail. It is targeted for the western edge of the triangle, including land the village bought from attorney Norm Kurtz.

The developer is Nicholas and Associates, which has done an extensive amount of work in the Northwest suburbs for four decades, including the popular ice arena in the Kensington Business Center.

Vice President Nick Papanicholas Jr. said the building likely would contain more than 70 residential units in a higher-end apartment building with luxury finishes similar to the Buckingham Place development being built on the old Littelfuse property in Des Plaines. He said it would offer a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.

The development would rise six stories with one level of underground parking and could include a restaurant with outdoor dining on the second level.

"It's a phenomenal site," Papanicholas said, noting it has advantages of visibility and being at the epicenter of the village. "What I want from a development standpoint is to bring something to Mount Prospect that it doesn't really have. The rental market has no new product. It has a lot of older product, specifically not in downtown. (It is) in the outlying areas."

He said his firm hopes "to bring a younger, fresher look and feel to the downtown area and hopefully bring residents with it that will support the downtown businesses, like the retail locations and the food and beverage options. So really just getting more people living downtown is kind of our goal."

Papanicholas said his firm has been in discussions with a restaurateur.

"It's an established, existing restaurant in the Northwest suburbs," he said.

Cassady said Nicholas responded to a village request for development proposals five months ago. The village' planning and zoning commission will review the project on Aug. 24, and it could reach the village board in September.

The small triangle has long been the target for development efforts by the village. Officials hoped the opening of the Blues Bar about a decade ago would revitalize the area, but the bar, now Brick City Tavern, remains the only significant project in the area.

Cassady said the proposed development "allows us to basically phase the redevelopment of the Busse Triangle with properties that the village either owns or controls, as well as what the developer owns or controls.

"One of the things that we have been trying to do is create new residential options, in particular targeting millennials," he added. "They don't have necessarily housing opportunities in downtown. So we think that there will be significant demand for that, which, I think, will just drive new business for our restaurants and small businesses."

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