The Wheaton City Council on Monday night voted 6-1 to give initial approval to plans for a 13,400-square-foot retail building and a 7,800-square-foot Sweet Tomatoes restaurant on the final piece of vacant land in the large Danada area.
Chicago-based Guinness Development will construct the retail building, which will contain a still-undetermined group of national tenants, and the restaurant on the 4.12-acre tract at 801 E. Butterfield Rd. The site is between the Brighton Gardens assisted-living center and Cozymel’s restaurant.
Sweet Tomatoes is a chain run by San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurants. Most of its outlets are in California, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Florida.
Guinness will install a traffic light where the property’s entrance meets Leask Lane. But Guinness officials on Monday objected to the city’s requirement that the company build a pedestrian bridge over Willow Way Creek, parallel to Butterfield Road.
Guinness attorney Tracy Kasson criticized the city’s requirement for a bridge to connect the public sidewalk that will be built in front of the mall with the Cozymel’s property on the west. He said the proposed bridge, which he estimated would cost $120,000 to $125,000, is beyond the developer’s purview, particularly since Guinness’ land ownership only extends to the center line of the creek.
But City Manager Don Rose reminded Kasson that all previously approved developments along Butterfield in that area have carried the assumption that the developer of the last vacant parcel would have to construct either a vehicular access bridge or a pedestrian bridge over the creek.
Rose also noted that the mall should have sidewalk access for pedestrians from the east as well as over the creek from the west.
“On a number of occasions, sidewalks have not been installed in front of developments on Butterfield, with the thought that people wouldn’t walk along such a busy road,” he said. “The reality is that people are walking along Butterfield. In our staff’s opinion, the sidewalk and bridge should be installed.”
Robert Mork was the only City Council member to agree with Kasson. He suggested that the city contribute to the cost of the pedestrian bridge.
But Councilman Grant Eckhoff said that, like all public improvements associated with development, the proposed pedestrian bridge should be funded entirely by the developer.
“Why, after private developers have tried to pass the buck for years, would we allow this private developer to pass the buck on to the city?” Eckhoff said.
Begun with the construction of a Jewel/Osco supermarket-drugstore in 1988, the development of the commercial and multifamily portion of Danada has included construction of six shopping areas. It also includes a satellite campus for the Illinois Institute of Technology, a church, two medical facilities, more than 15 eateries, three groceries, hundreds of apartments and five banks.
