Round Lake Beach working to attract more businesses
As part of an ongoing project, the Daily Herald asked local business and village leaders about what kind of economic development projects were on the way in their communities. Here are the answers from Round Lake Beach Village Manager David Kilbane.
Q. How do you go about supporting business development in your community?
A. We are actively trying to recruit new businesses into the area. We are staying in touch with all of the major commercial Realtors and brokers in the area. We are letting them know what is going in on the market. We let prospective businesses know that if they need the village to be their partner to let us know.
The big thing we're doing right now is staying in contact with all of those people so that we are able to respond to their needs and answer their questions so that they can do a better job of marketing their property for sale if and when the economy shifts.
Q. What are some of the newest projects, either just opened or in the works?
A. A Walmart Supercenter has opened northwest of Monaville Road and Route 83, replacing the retailer's previous 105,000-square-foot location on the north side of Rollins Road. We hope that this will attract other businesses as well.
Q. What is in the planning stages?
A. Nothing really. A lot of stuff just got halted just because of the economy. Even when the municipality would come with an incentive nobody was lending and nobody was building.
We are trying to work with Mallow Creek. That's the one we've been in contact and we've been working on. The economy has slowed down in the progress of the redevelopment of that.
Q. What is your town's biggest economic development wish?
A. More big box stores like Target. Also an office park, possibly like Greenleaf Plaza in Gurnee. There are a few possible sites. A nice commercial presence would improve things.
Q. What is your community's single greatest asset or selling point to potential developers?
A. The "business corridor" located on Rollins Road and Route 83. That corridor gets the benefit of commercial growth development which has been shown with the construction of the new Super Walmart. The growing population of the Round Lake Area has improved the commercial corridor. Different types of businesses that compliment each other to provide a nice commercial balance for the community.
Q. Have the challenges presented by the current downturn forced you and your community to approach economic development differently? What are the changes and how well are they working?
A. The problem is that I don't think any approach a municipality can take is a perfect solution. It was a global economic crisis. On the local level there wasn't much to do - if businesses can't borrow money they can't build.
All you can do is be mindful of revenues and expenditures and try to hunker down and weather the crisis, and put yourself in position to be ready to go when the crisis is over.