New Starbucks planned for Mount Prospect shopping center
A Mount Prospect shopping center that's been a source of village leaders' frustrations in recent years is getting a welcome dose of caffeine.
Village trustees this week approved a new building in the Golf Plaza II center that will include a Starbucks. The plan also calls for a needed realignment to the center's main entrance.
The new 4,200-square-foot, multi-tenant retail building will stand at 1000-1080 S. Elmhurst Road, south of the Boston Market. Half will be occupied by Starbucks, and a drive-through lane will wind around the building.
"It's a project that has been in the works for some time now," Community Development Director Bill Cooney said.
Trustees said it will be a welcome addition to a center long considered an eyesore.
During the discussion at Tuesday's meeting, trustees and Mayor Arlene Juracek said they were encouraged by the center's progress, while also recounting past aesthetic issues there.
"It's really been an embarrassment quite frankly at that corner, a major gateway to the village," Juracek said.
"I think the landscaping and the lighting, and the deficiencies in both of those were very noticeable to all of us and to everyone else in the community," she said. "It looks like we finally have a good confluence of resources and design and implementation."
Chris Giannis, the leasing representative for shopping center owner Anthony DiMucci, pledged that any remaining work to bring the center back in compliance with village requirements will be done.
"I have gotten a lot of things done on behalf of Mr. DiMucci and everything that they have asked me, and I think that's how it's going to continue," he said.
Among the items the village and owner have been working on is modifying curb cuts on both Elmhurst and Golf roads, including creating a new main entrance and moving it farther south to line up with the shopping center to the east.
This way, Cooney said, there can be left turns in and out of the site from Elmhurst Road. Construction, Cooney said, would start midsummer with an eye toward completion by the end of the year.