Who can park where at Carpentersville strip mall

In a Carpentersville shopping plaza on Route 31 across from Spring Hill Mall a controversy is bubbling up among business owners, the landowner and the village, but customers likely have no idea.

Tensions are high over parking on the north side of the plaza a lot technically owned by Fifth Third Bank but often used by customers of Just Hot Dogs and Headliners, among other businesses.

Anastasios Tsakiridis is a co-owner of Just Hot Dogs. He opened the business in the summer of 2009 thinking his customers had a right to any space in the lot. He later found out that was not technically true. The parking legally open to his customers is several hundred feet away.

Tsakiridis said that is too far for customers coming in the middle of winter for a hot dog.

The Village of Carpentersville writes its code for parking spaces based on parcel size. Because the whole business center is one parcel, the 277 spaces in the lot look like enough.

“They say overall you have enough space, but yeah, 650 feet down we have the spaces,” Tsakiridis said.

When Fifth Third Bank entered the plaza, the company built a new building and added a drive through, removing some of the communal spaces. It also leased the area of the parking lot from John Livaditis, instead of just the building itself like other business owners, including Tsakiridis.

“The bank has a ground lease,” Livaditis said. “But it doesn't mean that anybody cannot park anywhere.”

The manager at Fifth Third Bank declined to comment.

Fifth Third Bank has not posted signs that state its spaces are for its customers only, but business owners worry that is an option.

Jenifer Dillow, the owner of the hair salon Headliners, has been in her location for 12 years. Before Fifth Third Bank came, all the parking space were communal legally and in practice. Dillow doesn't like the idea that the spaces in front of her store aren't technically open to her customers.

“I'm renting a space and trying to run a business where I have no parking for clients,” Dillow said. “I can't run a business like that.”

Dillow said many of her elderly clients need close parking for her business to work.

“If parking were truly taken over by the bank, I would lose all those elderly clients,” Dillow said.

Tsakiridis and Dillow direct most of their anger at their landlord or at the village of Carpentersville for creating this situation, but unless Fifth Third Bank starts enforcing its parking perimeter the customers at least can rest easy.