Round Lake's ready for downtown developers

The puzzle pieces are all in place for one or many companies to come in and redevelop downtown Round Lake.

Now, the board is just looking for a company to put a shovel in the ground and get started.

Officials met Monday night for the purpose of explaining what type of structure they would like to see surrounding their downtown area in hopes of interesting development companies to come in and try to get things rolling.

Round Lake Mayor Bill Gentes said the board would like to see some mixed development downtown that would use the train station to bring commuters to the area.

"Were looking for buildings with some sort of commercial properties on the first floor and housing on the second or third floors," he said. "We are looking for transit-oriented development, a lot like Arlington Heights has downtown that is centered around their train station."

The village also plans to increase their Metra parking lot by 112 spaces and push Cedar Lake Road through the downtown area across Route 120 and linking it to Route 134 without the traffic dogleg currently in place.

In 2005, the village board approved a sweeping plan for the downtown area. Officials said they hope the plan will significantly alter that area and boost property and sales tax revenues.

Under that plan, the downtown would have a mix of higher-density housing, retail space and open spaces. The high-density housing, located adjacent to the Metra station, in theory will drive the commercial and retail redevelopment of downtown.

Over the past three years, the village has been gobbling up vacant land. They now own about 25 acres of vacant property that they are looking to get redeveloped.

"This process has progressed slowly but surely to the point where we are today," he said. "We want a vibrant downtown that people from all the Round Lake communities can use, with the type of businesses that will add to the area."

He said core ideas would be restaurants, shops, a theater and plenty of seating areas."

But now, the board needs to sell the ideas to developers to keep the process moving forward.

"The economy will play a part in how fast things can get moving," Gentes said. "I hope developers will step up immediately, but I'm hoping some work starts during the spring and summer.

"Right now, it's more of a salesman type job to get developers interested in moving forward."