Plan for Crate & Barrel raises questions

Plans are progressing to replace the abandoned John M. Smyth Homemakers building in Schaumburg with a Whole Foods grocer and, according to the developer's Web site, a Crate & Barrel store.

The Homemakers building at 1733 E. Woodfield Road just south of Woodfield Shopping Center has long been regarded as an eyesore by village officials, not up to new appearance standards in the Woodfield-area commercial district.

Hope of change was announced last January with the revelation of the Whole Foods project, but no demolition or construction activity has started since.

Robert Fink, chief development officer of Palatine-based Joseph Freed and Assocs., said Monday that final plans would be submitted to the village in about a week.

The warehouse-like Homemakers building has been vacant for years.

He described the project only as a Whole Foods store and "a second tenant," but plans on the Joseph Freed Web site identify a second building as the future home of the Crate & Barrel housewares store.

There's already a Crate & Barrel in Woodfield mall, and corporate officials at Crate & Barrel said they knew of no plans for a new location in Schaumburg in 2008.

The Crate & Barrel plans online show a two-story, 34,000-square-foot store and more than 500 parking spaces it would share with the larger Whole Foods building next door.

The Whole Foods store is expected to be 65,000 square feet, which would make it one of the chain's larger locations. Company spokeswoman Kate Klotz said the average size of a Whole Foods store is 55,000 to 60,000 square feet.

She said traffic and competition levels are strongly considered when choosing a new location, and the visibility of this particular site was seen as advantageous.

"We've had requests from that area for so long," Klotz said.

Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson said he couldn't be sure until the developers' final plans are submitted whether the second tenant on the site would be Crate & Barrel, as the village had been previously told, or if another business would be substituted.

If it is a Crate & Barrel, it's not clear whether the mall store would remain open or move into the new location.