St. Charles committee votes down Towne Plaza zoning

Scores of happy people exited St. Charles city hall Monday night after a city council committee essentially killed the proposed St. Charles Towne Plaza development.

The council, meeting as the planning and development committee, voted 7-2 against creating a new zoning district called PMD, for planned developments that have mixed uses.

That vote made moot Shodeen Inc.'s application to build offices, stores, restaurants, a hotel and apartments on the site of the former St. Charles Mall on Route 38 west of 14th Street. The land is zoned for commercial use.

Only aldermen Betsy Penny and Cliff Carrignan voted against the motion to reject the zoning, saying they wanted the city to continue talking about the plan.

"I'm not ready to say 'yes' or 'no' tonight (on the overall plan)," Penny said.

"I haven't heard anything that would change my mind," said Alderman Jim Martin, who said he opposed the proposal from the beginning.

More than 120 people attended the committee meeting. Some held up small signs with a red circle-and-slash through the words "St. Charles Towne Centre," the former name of the project. The developer announced the name change to St. Charles Towne Plaza on Monday night.

Residents who spoke, as well as several aldermen, said they are fine with having big-box stores or other commercial uses on the site.

They reiterated objections - expressed at a plan commission hearing that took place more than a year ago - to rental housing, which they believed would overcrowd St. Charles schools, and office and stores they feel would hurt the city's downtown First Street redevelopment project, where offices and stores are planned. First Street is being financed in part with city-backed bonds that are supposed to be paid back with increased property taxes that rise as a result of an expected increase in property value.

Saying there was a 20 to 25 percent office vacancy rate throughout town, Turner said, "I just don't see any reason why we would be approving all these office spaces and retail. We've got a massive oversupply."

Dave Patzelt, president of Shodeen Construction, said the intent was to have units similar to those in the company's Dodson Place in downtown Geneva, which he said rent for about $2,200 a month. But those rents, as well as the percentage of owner-to-tenant, would depend on the market, he said.

The St. Charles Mall opened in 1979, with 288,000 square feet; its anchor stores were a Kmart and a Spiess Department Store. But the larger Charlestowne Mall, with a Sears, JCPenney and Carson Pirie Scott, opened on the east side of town in the 1991. Spiess went out of business in the mid-1990s, and Kmart shut down, too.

The mall closed in 1996 and was demolished in 2002 and 2003; an auto mall was approved at that time.

Alderman David Richards said he doubted the 177,000 square feet of planned retail space would succeed in attracting the "upscale" retailers the developer had promised.

"We're setting this project up for failure," Richards said.

The recommendation will come to the city council May 17.

End: 'We're setting this project up for failure'