It has been described as sleepy, ugly and perhaps even empty. But downtown Mt. Prospect has never been called controversial.
That was until the village developed a plan to move the Village Hall and close a section of Busse Avenue downtown to encourage more pedestrian traffic in the aging business district.
That suggestion and five others were put on the table recently for input from residents and business owners into how Mt. Prospect should revive its downtown. They looked at proposals for a radically different downtown with more green space, condominiums or town homes, and specialty retail stores.
“It would create a central focus that would be the heart of downtown Mt. Prospect,” said Michael Hoffman, who chairs the village’s downtown redevelopment committee.
“We’re pretty ambitious,” Hoffman said. “We were asked to be visionary, and that’s what we are trying to do.”
Along with other communities across the northwest suburbs, Mt. Prospect has been trying for years to bolster its sagging downtown. It is under some pressure to finalize a plan before a special financing district, which will help the village pay for the project, expires in 2008.
The downtown redevelopment committee is on a mission to have a plan ready for redeveloping the downtown by the end of the year. The commission showed its hand for the first time at a Village Hall open house with color-coded maps of six plans for the downtown.
Two of the most ambitious plans would change the traffic flow on Busse Avenue to increase pedestrian traffic. The first would move a section of Busse Avenue north to provide room for two buildings of condominiums with retail space on the ground level of the structures.
In a second proposal, a town square would be built in the middle of downtown with a village green and the Village Hall in the center. Traffic on Busse Avenue would stop on Main Street and be split into one-way traffic on the north and south of the square.
“Everything at this point is on the table,” said village manager Michael Janonis. “To limit yourself at this stage to traditional thinking may be too narrow-sighted.”
Other proposals have varying mixes of condominiums or townhouses and retail and office space in different configurations downtown.
Most of the plans make room for a village green to provide a focal point for the downtown. Some plans call for the Village Hall and senior center to remain where they are. Some proposals suggest building a parking deck.
A preliminary market research study of downtown Mt. Prospect found that the district gets a high volume of traffic on the three main roads that meet there: Northwest Highway, Central Road and Illinois Highway 83.
The village’s Metra train station gets the second-highest number of passengers on that rail line, said Gary Papke, vice president of Clarion Associates Inc., the firm that conducted the study.
The village will have to juggle making the downtown area pedestrian-friendly and be attractive enough for the potential customers in their cars to park, stop and walk around.
“How do you get people out of their cars and on the streets? How do you take advantage of the good automobile traffic without turning it into an automobile-oriented downtown?” Papke said.
The idea of adding more condominiums is a concept that is gaining popularity as suburban communities seek to live and shop downtown. But it’s an idea that seems to draw the most ire from Mt. Prospect residents and business owners.
“I would like to see more activity downtown, but I’m not sure that cramming people into a condominium is the way,” said Tom Neitzke, owner of Dugout Militaria, 22 W. Busse Ave. “I kind of like Mt. Prospect as a small community the way it is.”
Neitzke supported a redevelopment project that would preserve the older buildings on Busse Avenue and add more retail space to attract specialty businesses like his own.
Roger and Robert Czerniak, owners of Central Continental Bakery, 101 S. Main St., said they want to make sure there is enough parking for the new residents and businesses the redevelopment would attract.
“This is a new version of a 30-year plan to change the business district,” Roger Czerniak said. “There are a lot of places that need improving, but they need to talk to the businesses first.”
