Mundelein officials likely to scuttle condo plan

A controversial plan to build condominiums near Mundelein's Diamond Lake is sinking.

The village board is expected to revoke the special-use permit that would have allowed the Water's Edge condominiums to be built. Village leaders say the developers never finalized a required deal to donate about 2 acres of nearby land to the Mundelein Park and Recreation District, which has a site nearby.

Additionally, construction needed to start within two years of the board's 2006 approval of the plans. That deadline expired Aug. 28 without ground ever having been broken, officials said.

Foreclosure proceedings have been started against the Granite Real Estate Development, the group that headed the $20 million project, village documents indicate.

Representatives with Schaumburg-based Granite could not be reached for comment Friday.

Mundelein Trustee Terri Voss, a vocal opponent of the development when it was proposed, said she felt the project was flawed from the start.

"And now I think there will be an opportunity for a new project that will be viable to take that space," she said.

Plans called for two, four-story condominium buildings to go up on the east side of Diamond Lake Road, south of Oakdale Avenue.

The site is across the road from the lake. It had been a parking lot for a once-popular lakeshore restaurant that has been torn down.

Many area residents in the quiet neighborhood had opposed the proposal during public hearings in 2005. They said the buildings would've been too big and out of character for the area.

So did the village's plan commission, but the village board approved the plan over its objections.

The village board is expected to discuss the Water's Edge plan on Monday, Sept. 22. That meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at the main fire station, 1000 N. Midlothian Road.