Monday is decision day for proposed Lake Zurich hotel

Monday is decision day for proposed Lake Zurich hotel

Residents site hold out hope trustees will reject or change plan

Several Lake Zurich residents opposed to a hotel targeted for Rand Road near their homes are resigned that the project's approval may be a foregone conclusion.

The proposal by Joseph Freed and Associates of Palatine is intended for roughly 5 acres at 195 S. Rand Road, adjacent to the vacant Kmart. It is the site of the former Frank's Nursery that went bankrupt and has been vacant for years.

The project, known in its entirety as The Shops of Lakeview, calls for an 86-room Holiday Inn Express, a Starbucks, an 8,000-square-foot restaurant with a drive-through, and a 7,500-square-foot retail building.

Neighbors have fought the proposal from the beginning because they say they don't want to live next to a hotel. Business and village leaders support it because they say Lake Zurich needs a hotel.

Dozens of residents testified against the project at a plan commission hearing in June. The commission voted 5-1 to recommend the project be denied, but was overruled by the village planning and development committee.

Now, a final decision is expected Monday at the village board meeting.

Several residents met with the developer last week, asking for the hotel to be moved closer to the highway, further away from homes. They also asked for more screening at the back of the building.

Pushing the hotel closer to Rand Road was shot down immediately, said Aaron Karstens, who lives directly behind the property.

Residents hoped the developer would change the direction of the hotel to be perpendicular to the highway, so residents would be looking at the side and not the rear.

"It's going to be an enormous building," Karstens said. "It's going to take up the whole width of that lot, and (be) 41 feet tall."

Karstens added, however, the developer is reaching out to residents with an improved landscaping plan.

Joseph Freed and Associates could not be reached for comment Thursday or Friday, but village officials say they are offering to do landscaping beyond what is required by village code.

Neighbors say that isn't enough to satisfy their concern that they still have to look at a big hotel, and deal with the noise it will create.

Residents asked the developer to create a natural 10-foot high berm with perhaps 10-foot tall trees on top that would block a good portion of the hotel from view. The developer has proposed maintaining an existing 6-foot fence and planting cypress trees for added screening.

Those trees would be planted too small and spread out to address the immediate screening needs, said resident Jeff Halen, who lives directly behind the property.

It would take 30 years for the trees to mature, he said.

"We were just trying to work with what they actually had proposed," Halen said. "We didn't feel like there was really any compromise."

Halen said the developer also promised information about the amount of noise that may be generated.

Lake Zurich Mayor John Tolomei said village board will have to weigh the benefits of a hotel against the burdens to residents.

"The residents are pretty solid in their belief that the hotel will lower their property values," he said. "Having a national hotel chain bring an attractive building to an abandoned property would benefit them in the long run."

Tolomei said some village residents have sent e-mails and called trustees to show support for the hotel project.

"I do appreciate the input of the residents," he said. "We will need to balance some difficult issues on Monday night.

The main thing the trustees are wrestling with is the residents' concerns," he said. "How valid they all are, that's a different question."