Mix of housing, commercial targeted for Mount Prospect’s Lake Center Plaza

The recent winner of a business award from Mount Prospect’s Economic Development Commission is hoping to win approval for a five-story, mixed-use building at Lake Center Plaza on the village’s south side.

Ridvan Alka of R&A Construction unveiled plans before the Planning and Zoning Commission Thursday. The commission gave a positive recommendation, and the village board votes on it March 17.

The new 76,650-square foot building at 301 LaSalle Street, at the southwest corner of LaSalle and Elmhurst Road, would have about 7,620 square feet of ground floor restaurant and retail space. Just under 50 residential units would occupy the remaining floors.

Initially annexed for commercial use in 1971, the land was approved for industrial and office development in 1987. However, that never came to fruition, village officials said.

The core central property was developed as industrial warehousing in the late 2010s. The new building would sit on the last parcel of open space.

“Lake Center Plaza was originally envisioned as a different use, and every decade or two the market reinvented it,” said the developer’s attorney, Lawrence Freedman. “This is the end of a vision.”

Jason Shallcross, Mount Prospect’s community development director, said the space is one of the key redevelopment sites identified in the village’s South Mount Prospect plan, while the village’s comprehensive plan eyes it as part of a mixed-use district.

During the Economic Development Commission’s business awards last month at the Old Orchard Country Club, Alka’s firm received the Rehabilitation Award, honoring the rehabilitation of the multiunit residential property at 2072 W. Algonquin Road.

Alka, who not only owns rental properties on Algonquin Road in Mount Prospect, but also owns a construction company in the village, said he is excited to get the new project underway. It could be completed by late 2027.