A three-story office building on Naperville Road in Wheaton’s Danada area is days away from the wrecking ball.
Though vacant, the 19,462-square-foot onetime Chase bank building at 2000 S. Naperville Road is hardly old or outmoded. It was built in 1989 and had housed retail banking and back-office functions for JPMorgan Chase until recently. However, the bank eventually consolidated its functions in other locations and no longer needed it, subsequently placing it up for sale.
In June, the Wheaton City Council approved plans for a new, 13,225-square-foot CVS drug store that would replace the office building on the 1.69-acre site. An affiliate of CVS called Highland Park CVS LLC officially purchased the property in November for $2.3 million, and last week, construction fencing went up around the office building.
Although the Danada area mostly was developed as recently as the 1980s and 1990s, three other commercial buildings in Danada also have had short lives and have been demolished and replaced by other structures. None, however, were office buildings.
In 2010, the Grady’s American Grill restaurant, 301 E. Loop Road, was demolished to make way for a Chick-fil-A restaurant. That same year, a Burger King restaurant at 2020 S. Naperville Road was razed and replaced by a new Walgreens pharmacy. And in 2004, a shuttered Zany Brainy toy store at 18 Blanchard Circle was demolished and replaced by a Bank of America building.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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