Lake Zurich getting help with its downtown
Lake Zurich officials are working on hiring a coordinator and architect to revise the village's downtown master plan and breathe new life into redevelopment projects that are now dead.
Officials are now brokering a deal with Barrington-based developer David Smith's Equity Services Group to front $216,000 to hire Maryland-based architects Torti Gallas & Partners for the job.
In the draft agreement, the village would pay ESG a $50,000 consulting fee. All up-front costs would be absorbed by the developer, and the village would later establish an impact fee with an interest rate that would get tagged on to every revitalization project to repay ESG.
"The impact fee would be paid as different portions of the downtown get developed," Lake Zurich Mayor John Tolomei said at a meeting this week.
The village needs help jump-starting its downtown plan because a special taxing district established to fund downtown redevelopment isn't generating enough funds to cover payments on its current $27 million debt, let alone money for new projects.
Smith, in return for bank-rolling the village, gets first dibs on any downtown site he would like to redevelop for 6 months after the master plan is revised with new architectural standards and development guidelines.
That includes an exclusive right to propose projects for the village-owned site across from the lakefront promenade -- where the village's previous master developer, McCaffery Interests, had proposed a five-story condo building -- and other key downtown parcels.
Tolomei said Smith also would be responsible for bringing in private investors to finance his redevelopment project and projects other developers bring forward.
The village would still have final approval on all projects.
The arrangement would eliminate the need for developers to rely on bank loans that proved tough to get for two past developers hired to work on the downtown, he said.
The deal makes some Lake Zurich residents nervous as Smith is eyeing a lakefront property that's not part of the downtown to erect two five-story condominium buildings.
That proposal, targeted for 5 acres known as Nestlerest Park off Robertson Avenue along Lake Zurich's southern lakefront, calls for 110 condos with an underground parking garage for 240 cars surrounded by roughly 35 large-lot, single-family homes.
Smith has made no secret of his plans for the southern shore of the lakefront, which he would like to see become part of the downtown redevelopment area.
Area residents, who started a campaign against the Nestlerest proposal, fear Smith is dangling a carrot in front of the village in hopes of getting the condo project approved.
Tolomei said the village has not given any guarantees to Smith that the Nestlerest proposal would be approved if he funds the plan revisions. Yet, Tolomei acknowledged it is possible the developer may walk away from downtown altogether without it.
"Once the planning is done and Nestlerest is decided, there may not be anything left here where he may want to go forward as a developer of particular locations within downtown," Tolomei said.
Officials hope to get an agreement with Smith and the architects hammered out for approval at next Monday's village board meeting.