Apartments at plaza not flying with Mundelein officials
A high-profile but sparsely visited shopping center on Mundelein's south side would be replaced by apartments and new retail space under a newly unveiled plan.
Ron Boorstein, owner of Oak Creek Plaza on Route 60 east of Route 45, wants to reshape the property because two anchor stores and other businesses are leaving or have left, according to a village memo.
Trustees are cool to the plan, however. After a preliminary presentation Monday, officials expressed concerns about aspects of the proposal -- particularly the residential component.
Trustee Terri Voss isn't ready for that corner -- one of the area's most heavily traveled -- to turn residential.
"I still think that corner wants to be retail," she said Tuesday.
Although he acknowledged the shopping center has struggled for years, Trustee Ray Semple wasn't thrilled by the plan, either.
"I think it definitely needs to be refined," Semple said. "The ball is in Ron's court to make any potential changes and decide if he wants to move forward."
On Tuesday, Boorstein said he'd like to keep the site full of stores, but he can't attract new tenants. Retailers would rather locate in shopping districts in Vernon Hills and on the west side of Mundelein, he said.
"If I had a good, viable retail site to (put) there, I'd be glad to do it, but I don't," he said.
The Menards and Hobby Lobby stores plan to leave Oak Creek Plaza when their leases end, village officials said. Other retailers have left or plan to leave, too, officials said.
Boorstein wants to reconfigure the roughly 45-acre, L-shaped shopping center so stores are located closer to Route 60. A group of luxury apartment buildings containing 700 to 800 units would be built on the rest of the property, according to his plan.
The free-standing stores in the shopping center, which include a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop, would not be affected, the plan states.
Semple said some trustees were concerned the proposed apartment buildings might attract low-income renters and create problems similar to those the village experienced with the former Whitehall Manor apartments on Butterfield Road.
Village leaders have been trying to avoid new apartment complexes because of those problems, he said.
Voss said apartments aren't needed in the area because two other multifamily residential developments are proposed for the village's south side.
She'd rather see Boorstein update the shopping center and leave it retail.
"I want this to be an impressive development," Voss said. "And I'm not convinced … this is the best that we can do."