Gas station, shopping coming to high-traffic Palatine corner

Although it closed more than a decade ago and was demolished soon after, traces of Angelique's Steakhouse & Lounge can still be found around Algonquin and Roselle roads near Harper College.

Faded "Enter" signs still stand, barely, near the barricaded ramps to the property and a few broken signs bearing the restaurant's name are strewed around the land that thousands drive past every day.

But in a few months there will finally be activity on the 2.25 acres. A plan to build a gas station and shopping center was approved by the village council this week.

Demetrios Staveris, an architect with Interglobal Design Build Network, said there will be two buildings on the site, at 1776 S. Roselle Road.

Staveris said one building will have a Dunkin' Donuts, a Subway restaurant and a gas station with a minimart.

The other building will have room for six commercial tenants, he said. The gas station will have 10 pumps.

"I hope that this project will start in a couple of months if everything goes well," Staveris said.

This is not the first time a plan to make use of the site has been approved.

Village Manager Reid Ottesen said eight years ago a proposal for a mixed-use development was approved but never got off the ground.

"It was going to have condos on top and commercial space on the bottom," Ottesen said. "But then the market collapsed."

The site originally held the popular Ember's Charhouse, home of the singing waiters.

"That's what most people would remember it as," Ottesen said. "It was very entertaining."

Ben Vyverburg, Palatine's director of planning and zoning, said the plan was first brought to the village in January and has undergone little change since then. It received preliminary approval by the council in the spring and by the plan commission in the summer.