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Lake Zurich reviewing developer proposals
Lake Zurich Friday, 4/20/12 Director of building and zoning, Dan Peterson and planning manager, Vijay Gadde at the "Block A" development area in Lake Zurich. | Brian O'Mahoney~for Sun-Times Media
Updated: August 20, 2012 11:16AM
LAKE ZURICH — In an effort to prepare for the July 23 review of four different development proposals, village officials discussed what they felt were some kinks in Lake Zurich’s downtown redevelopment plan at Monday’s board of trustees meeting.
Trustees Jeff Halen and Tom Poynton raised questions about the lack of details provided by the four developers interested in redeveloping Block A within the village’s tax increment financing district.
Those that have approached the village about developing Block A include Richard Sova with Landover Corporation; John Bruegelmans with ARDE, J. Moises Cukierman; and David Smith with Southshore Real Estate Development.
Village officials will give all four developers’ proposals for Block A a courtesy review Monday.
After reviewing the village’s bi-weekly report, Halen explained that he wouldn’t feel comfortable moving forward with any of the developers until he received more information about their plans. He also expressed confusion about what he assumed was a lack of interest from the developers in the TIF district’s various other parcels.
“If we’re stuck with the other parcels without being able to go with an RFP (Request For Proposals), then what are we going to do with them?” Halen asked. “If we can’t RFP them, then we’re just sitting with lots that I think at some point this board will have to decide how we’re going to either build it or sell it.”
Village Administrator Jason Slowinski explained that Monday would be a necessary courtesy review before the developers could continue to devote considerable resources to further complete detailed development plans.
Should the trustees decide that they would not like to move forward with any of the developers, the village will issue an RFP.
Slowinski however added that part of the challenge was constructing an RFP that would include a request to develop the other parcels within the TIF district.
“We’ve got a number of properties in the TIF district, not all of which are adjacent to one another to form any billable site or path—that’s one of the struggles we’ve had,” Slowinski said.
He explained that it will be additionally difficult for the building and zoning department to construct an all-encompassing RFP because the village does not own all the property within the TIF district. Block A, on the other hand, is a self-contained block in which the village owns all the property.
To avoid confusing the developer community, Slowinski said that the village should move forward with the special meeting’s courtesy reviews.
“The challenge with having the RFP process run at the same time that we’re doing these courtesy reviews that are scheduled next Monday, is that we are sending a confusing signal to the development community as to what our process is,” Slowinski said.
Back in February, Richard Sova expressed an interest in building up to 125 rental units around the lake front area; John Bruegelmans discussed developing 65 rental units with about 8,000-squre feet of destination retail around the lake front area and a section of Block B; Moises Cokierman talked to the village about a rental building with up to 120 units; and David Smith was interested in 364 units with one-to-five stories in Blocks A and E.
