12 years long enough for Rolling Meadows to find Dominick's replacement
When is it time to throw in the towel on economic hopes?
That's a hard question to answer and often depends, as so much usually does, on circumstances.
Regarding the vacant Dominick's property, Rolling Meadows is standing at a fork in the road, facing the kind of decision many communities do after losing a big-box retailer or major employer. Now, there is interest from a senior housing developer in the 11.5 acres where the former grocer and strip mall once stood on Kirchoff Road. The Dominick's has been gone since 2004 and despite some promising nibbles over the years — Caputo's, for one — the site remains unwanted and unloved by retailers.
The problem with the Dominick's site isn't just the economy. It's traffic, or specifically, a lack of it. Consultants have repeatedly said Kirchoff Road doesn't get the kind of traffic that makes retailers salivate.
Still, Rolling Meadows has been holding out for retail, something to stem the bleeding of sales-tax revenues that started with the grocery store's departure and continued when the Sam's Club at Golf and Algonquin closed in 2010.
It's going on 12 years since Dominick's was lost, and aldermen are split about the senior housing proposal. Some are downright stricken.
“This basically takes away downtown, and once it's gone, it's not coming back,” Alderman Len Prejna said this week. “I am not interested in losing our downtown.”
Understood. But how long do you work, how long do you wait, for somebody else to come in and take up where the former employer left off? How long do you patch and plug holes in the budget that sales taxes or property taxes used to fill?
The conclusion we come to is this: After 12 years, it's OK for Rolling Meadows to let go.
We've previously suggested the city consider a park at that location. The interest from a senior housing developer adds an interesting dimension worth seriously considering. Whether aldermen accept it or come up with another idea, the city has an opportunity here. If their first choice — retail — is unrealistic, the question becomes, what other needs does Rolling Meadows have that these 11.5 acres can fill?
As baby boomers age into retirement and beyond, senior housing is one obvious choice. Last September, we suggested the city think about the kind of park that could be a natural meeting place for residents.
Whatever it can be, Rolling Meadows is in the best position to judge. But the possibilities are intriguing.
Residents and the other businesses along Kirchoff Road don't deserve the eyesore that the empty Dominick's plaza has become.
To many people, anything short of a retailer is settling for second best. But sometimes second best can still be very appealing and certainly preferable to nothing.