Woodman's breaks ground on Buffalo Grove store
"Hi, we're the Woodmans!" exclaimed Phil and son Clint Woodman, the frontmen of the Wisconsin-based mega grocer, on Wednesday at a groundbreaking for their new store in Buffalo Grove.
"Ay, caramba, we're here," company's CEO Phil Woodman added. "We made it."
The same pizzazz that the father-and-son team used to kick off the groundbreaking ceremony they use to hawk their grocery products on local TV commercials throughout Wisconsin.
And, Phil says, as the company continues its expansion south of the Wisconsin cheddar curtain, Chicago-area TV viewers can expect to see the same thing.
The 242,000-square-foot Buffalo Grove store now under construction on the northwest corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway will be the 17th in the chain's portfolio, which mainly operates in Wisconsin but includes locations in Carpentersville and North Aurora. The company expects to break ground on another store in April 2018 at routes 12 and 120 in Lakemoor.
Phil Woodman said he had hoped to start construction a year ago on the Buffalo Grove site, but blamed "red tape" involving various governmental agencies, which had to first resolve stormwater and traffic issues.
Village officials say the Illinois Department of Transportation required some $4 million of improvements to the intersection before the store could be approved. The work includes street widening, more turning lanes and a center median.
Last year, the village board inked a 20-year sales tax-sharing agreement under which Woodman's will receive up to $7 million, including up to $4 million for the off-site roadway and intersection upgrades.
"It wasn't easy getting here," Woodman said. "At times we said, 'Are we really going to end up here or not?' It was kind of tough sometimes, but working in Illinois is not as easy as it is in Wisconsin.
"But maybe that's a good omen - maybe that's a good thing that we're here."
Woodman said the company is expanding in Illinois because it is essentially maxed out in Wisconsin. Company officials look for heavily populated areas in proximity to interstates and main streets. They also look for a lot of land because of the sheer size of their stores, which hold roughly 100,000 items on shelves.
Woodman's only opens a new store every two to three years, and it has to be within a 150-mile radius of its headquarters in Janesville, Wisconsin, Phil Woodman said.
Construction on the 20-acre Buffalo Grove site is now focusing on underground stormwater, relocating utilities and pouring a foundation. Since the building is precast construction, walls for the store should be up in the next week or two, according to Christopher Stilling, the village's director of community development.
The estimated $40 million development also includes construction of a gas and lube station with a car wash on the west side of the site.
Across the street on the south side of Deerfield Parkway, a $10 million, 5.5-acre mixed-use development will be built by Shorewood Development Group, with offices, retail and new restaurants.
Both developments are targeted for opening in August or September of 2018.