Village board candidates discuss keeping Gurnee Mills successful

Adding a music venue and beefing up security are among the ideas on how to keep Gurnee Mills mall successful proposed by the seven candidates vying for three seats on the Gurnee village board.

Incumbent Michael Jacobs said the mall remains viable because of the village's tourism, particularly from Six Flags Great America. He said opening a music venue at the mall would drive interest.

"I love live music and they have great venues all over the place," Jacobs said at a recent Daily Herald editorial board endorsement session involving all the candidates. "In the city of Waukegan they have a lakefront music venue open during the summer. Why can't we do the same thing at the mall?"

Recently the village board paid a consultant to study the feasibility of a proposed youth sports complex built next to Six Flags Great America. Challenger Quin O'Brien said he thinks the village should try to encourage a developer to build that complex next to Gurnee Mills instead to help the mall.

"How cool would it be to have parents spending time at the mall when they aren't by their kid's youth sports?" O'Brien said. "I think if it's going to be built, that's the place."

Challenger Jamie Seaton said she thinks the mall doesn't provide everyone with the feeling of safety. She said the village needs to focus on law enforcement and mall safety to keep shoppers coming.

In March 2017, four people were arrested after being involved in a fight at the mall.

Incumbent Trustee Cheryl Ross praised the village's visitor-oriented police program, which assigns Gurnee officers to tourist spots like the mall. Ross said if there were to be a curfew at the mall, which usually closes at 9 p.m., it would have to be a decision made by Simon, the management company.

"They want to keep people coming and spending money," Ross said. "But if the problem got so severe certainly we have home rule authority."

Challenger Matthew Duray, a student at Warren Township High School, said he was very much against a curfew.

"I don't think we can hold all young people accountable for select incidents that have happened," Duray said.

Incumbent Greg Garner said he has long been a supporter of the mall and it has been a major focus during his tenure.

"We're one of the few communities to have three venues, if one should go down it would be disastrous," Garner said, referring to the mall, Six Flags and Great Wolf Lodge.

Garner said the board has worked well with Simon and praised the company's recent renovation, which was estimated to have cost $6 million. The Gurnee village board voted in 2017 to help defray the cost of the renovations by contributing up to $250,000 per year for four years to Simon.

Ryan Horath, a member of Stop ETO in Lake County - a group advocating for the outlaw of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing gas found to be present in Gurnee - said he thinks the mall will be hurt if nothing is done on the air issue.

"They won't be satisfied that it is below a certain threshold, they'll just read that it's in the air and won't want to come," he said.