Go ahead and cross-stitch it on a pillow – Hobby Lobby is headed to Deerfield.
Though it’s not official quite yet, on Monday night, Deerfield trustees accepted a recommendation to approve the plan for a new 51,000-square-foot Hobby Lobby in the Deerbrook Shopping Center, at the corner of Waukegan and Lake Cook Roads. The village board is expected to take its final vote on the plan in early March.
Deerfield officials have said they hope the arts-and-crafts giant could help revitalize the Deerbrook mall, which has had vacancies for several years. It also represents a boost in sales tax revenue – as long as the store makes $5 million to $6 million in sales a year, as projected.
“It’s taking a space that’s been vacant for a while,” Mayor Harriet Rosenthal said after Monday’s meeting. “We’re always happy to have new businesses.”
The Deerfield store is one of 70 Hobby Lobby stores expected to open this year – the most in the past five years, according to a company spokesman.
“There are many reasons for our growth,” Hobby Lobby spokesman Vince Parker wrote in an email.
Hobby Lobby was at the center of a controversial Supreme Court decision in June, in which the court ruled that some corporations cannot be forced to offer health insurance that covers contraception.
The controversy doesn’t appear to have hindered the company’s growth: Hobby Lobby has opened almost 200 new stores since 2010, including 68 last year, Parker said.
Rosenthal said she’s only heard from a couple of residents with concerns about Hobby Lobby’s politics. No one spoke during public comment at the meeting.
None of that is of concern to the village board, Rosenthal said.
“For us, it’s a land-use issue,” the mayor said. “We can’t take anything else into consideration.”
Hobby Lobby would move into the space formerly occupied by Best Buy in the Deerbrook Shopping Center. Opening soon in the same mall will be a MOD Pizza restaurant.
“It will be nice having a regional draw to bring people in from outside of our immediate area,” Deerfield Village Manager Kent Street said of Hobby Lobby.
Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby Stores operates more than 600 stores in the country, according to the company website.
No more store openings are planned this year in the Chicago area, Parker said.
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