Oakbrook Terrace shopping complex to get facelift

Oakbrook Terrace leaders are in the process of creating a business district to help pay for the redevelopment of a shopping complex along Roosevelt Road.

The planned facelift of Oakbrook Square Mall will be paid mostly by the owners of the 155,000-square-foot strip mall at the southwest corner of Roosevelt and Summit roads.

However, the city officials are considering a plan to make the 13-acre site its own business district.

If the plan is approved, a 1 percent sales tax will be added on everything purchased at stores within the district, with the exception of groceries and drugs. The city's current sales tax rate is 8.25 percent.

Extra money raised from the tax would help fund the improvements to the center, City Administrator Martin Bourke said.

"There's a local shopping center there now that's going to be totally redeveloped," Bourke said.

While the area is called Oakbrook Square Mall, the name will be changed to Oakbrook Terrace Square once the project is completed.

An existing Dominick's will stay but will be reconfigured. And a Harris Bank will be relocated within the site.

Other businesses have not yet confirmed whether they'll stay or go.

Bourke said the developers would like to start working on the site this summer, but still need to tie some loose ends.

"The main purpose of the project is to redevelop an old, out-of-date, dilapidated shopping center," he said.

The city has been looking at redeveloping the complex for about five years, and has been talking to the developer for almost two years.

If everything goes as planned, the creation of the business district will be finalized by the end of the month.

Once the project begins, it would take about two years to complete redevelopment project.