Fresh from backing away from a sales-tax rebate to revitalize a sagging mall up the street, the Village Board has given an initial thumbs-down to an even greater sales-tax return to the developer of a proposed mall on Roosevelt Road.
Trustees turned down a request by Great Lakes Partners, which is developing the 15-acre retail portion of the Baker Hill site at the northeast corner of Roosevelt Road and Illinois Highway 53, to refund $1.5 million, or 50 percent of the mall’s sales-tax revenues, over a 10-year period. Great Lakes representatives, who have attracted commitments in their mall from an anchor, Dominick’s Finer Foods, and from McDonald’s, Hollywood Video and Factory Card Outlet, had pointed to the site’s steep topography and extensive acquisition costs as extraordinary circumstances that would merit financial assistance from Glen Ellyn.
But the board sounded cynical. Several trustees expressed a hope for a more regionally oriented anchor tenant that would draw visitors from other communities instead of pulling customers from other Glen Ellyn businesses. Trustee Robert Renfro suggested that the well-heeled Town & Country Homes, which bought the entire 50-acre Baker Hill site earlier this year for $4.48 million and which will develop the property’s residential portion, would ensure that the retail mall is built, with or without the rebate.
“Some of these costs you’ve outlined are ones you’ve chosen to bear in bringing this plan to us,” Trustee Sarah Poeppel told the developers.
The board recently held off on extending a $900,000 rebate to the company that will redevelop the declining Pickwick Place mall, which is further west on Roosevelt.
