Glenview lawmakers’ vote to give a $500,000 grant to a company to open a new downtown café and restaurant has riled the owner of an existing café who said the Village’s financial support for the new business is unfair and could effectively lead to her closing.
“I’m deeply offended and personally hurt that the Village would take such an adversarial approach to me by inviting a highly successful out-of-town competitive mini-franchise coffeehouse to Glenview and then proposing to finance it,” Cathy Schiltz, owner of the Glenview Grind coffeehouse in the 1800 block of Glenview Road told the Glenview Village Board during its August 6 meeting.
“I trust that the Board realizes the damage that Hometown will have on Glenview Grind and some of the other existing downtown businesses,” Schiltz added emotionally. “You have the power to vote no and respectfully I request that you deny this resolution.”
Schiltz said she has put her “heart and soul” into Glenview Grind since it opened 11 years ago, that she’s lived in the village for 24 years, and that her four sons all worked at the coffeehouse over the years.
“I come before you tonight to respectfully request that this honorable board reject the Glenview Hometown Coffee and IGN limited partnership development,” she said.
Instead of denying the resolution the Board voted unanimously in favor of giving Hometown Coffee Glenview, LLC and IGM Limited Partnership a $500,000 grant to open at the southeast corner of Grove and Depot Streets, less than two blocks from Glenview Grind. The total cost of the project is estimated at $1.6 million.
“The journey of Hometown began in October 2018, when we opened our first location in Glencoe,” according to a memo from the company to the Village. “Since then, we’ve expanded to the communities of Winnetka and Lake Forest. With each new establishment, we’ve deepened our commitment to serving as a neighborhood focal point — an inviting, experiential space that fosters connections between community members of all ages.”
The $500,000 grant in Village money in the agreement comes from the “permanent fund,” established in 1996 as part of “The Glen” residential redevelopment project. In 1996 developers gave 20 % of the proceeds from the sale of land within “The Glen” to the Village’s permanent fund to be used for economic development outside “The Glen” in particular in the village’s downtown core. The Village has given out about $20 million in loan guarantees and grants since the program started.
Jeff Brady, Director of Community Development in Glenview, told the Board that the “Glenview Connect Process” by which the Village gets feedback from residents on what they want to see in the village, showed residents are “looking forward to a revitalized downtown with more reasons to shop and eat at unique places,” he explained. “The comment ‘downtown has little to offer’ resonated throughout the process.”
He also said the Village expects to get $525,000 in new sales tax revenues from Glenview Hometown Coffee over the next 12 years.
“My business does exactly what Hometown does,” said Schiltz. “We need a variety of businesses in downtown. We have seven existing coffeehouses. This new business will definitely hurt all of us existing downtown businesses.”
During the August 6 meeting, Village President Michael Jenny said economic incentives like the $500,000 given to Hometown Coffee are available for anyone who qualifies.
“Right now a phone call to the development office with some idea of what you’d like to do with your business, your restaurant, your shop, your store, be it a façade improvement, a leasehold improvement, an expansion, a capital investment in your business, we are listening,” he explained. “It doesn’t have to be just new businesses.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
