Former Hoffman Estates bowling alley's lot to store cars for Zeigler dealerships
The suddenly full parking lot at the former Hoffman Lanes in Hoffman Estates is not an indication that the shuttered bowling alley has found new life as an illegal speak-easy amid coronavirus-related restrictions.
Rather, the otherwise unused property has been granted permission to provide temporary vehicle storage for the Zeigler Automotive Group, which recently acquired three nearby luxury car dealerships along Golf Road.
The Hoffman Estates village board Monday granted permission to Zeigler to lease the lot at 80 W. Higgins Road from the property's owner, WT Group LLC, for one year while a redevelopment plan for the 2.7-acre site is forged.
"WT has some complex engineering work to do to reduce the amount of floodplain on this property, and that includes installing new storm sewers on the east side of Roselle (Road)," Hoffman Estates Director of Development Services Peter Gugliotta said. "Those plans and that work will easily take a year to complete; therefore, the bowling alley site will not be able to be redeveloped for quite some time."
WT Group has come up with two previous redevelopment concepts for the site since the bowling alley closed in 2015, neither of which was met with sufficient enthusiasm from the village board to proceed.
The first was a strip center for stores and restaurants with a facade evoking the original use of the building. And last year, WT Group representatives suggested a new building on the site that would allow Hertz Car Sales to relocate from 855 W. Golf Road in Schaumburg to a larger facility.
Michigan-based Zeigler Automotive Group bought the three nearby dealerships from Motor Werks Auto Group in January. They are Mercedes and Sprinter of Hoffman Estates, 1000 W. Golf Road; Jaguar Land Rover Schaumburg, 920 W. Golf Road; and Infiniti of Hoffman Estates, 1075 W. Golf Road. No sales will take place on the storage site, and Gugliotta emphasized that Zeigler has no plans to buy the property.