Burr Ridge Mayor Wants Control Of Old Bank Site

BURR RIDGE, IL – Emails between Burr Ridge officials give an inside look into the plan for the old TCF Bank property, which has gone unused for a few years.

The site includes a five-story building at 800 Burr Ridge Parkway, next to the Village Center and County Line Square. The village has said it has received a number of inquiries from developers.

In a February email, Mayor Gary Grasso told Village Administrator Evan Walter that a public meeting the night before on the TCF site had gone well. He said he appreciated the consensus on keeping the building.

Grasso promised an email introduction for Walter to a developer named Matt who wants to repurpose the building with "some of my ideas." In other emails, Matt appears to be Matthew Ishikawa, a senior vice president of CBRE, a real estate company. (Ishikawa was mentioned in a 2022 Patch story about the property.)

Grasso said Ishikawa attended the hearing with his broker, Jackie Salman. The mayor asked Walter to meet with the pair to discuss specifics on the site.

"I'd like to give them the first crack at it since Matt approached me first about keeping the building and seems to have a plan," Grasso wrote. "I like controlling the whole site and having the Board fill in the pieces of the site (with) what the residents want."

Patch left a message Wednesday with Ishikawa and Salman, who is with Cabanban Rubin & Mayberry Commercial Realty.

At a Village Board meeting in February, Grasso said the village still lacked a clear vision for the TCF property, but would work on one. Most of the proposals for the TCF site, he said, have been apartments. The densities are "unbelievable" and the configurations are "unacceptable," he said.

In April, members of the village's Economic Development Committee showed support for a development that included multifamily housing such as apartments or condos on the TCF site. They said a mixed-use development containing retail and housing would benefit the village.

In May 2019, a few weeks after he became mayor, Grasso wrote his son, Daniel Grasso, about the TCF parcel. His son works for real estate services firm JLL.

From his village email account, the mayor told his son that the parcel in question was about 16 acres and sits between the Village Center and County Line Square.

"We understand TCF wants to sell, and the Village wants to develop it at the highest and best use for sales tax generation or alternative revenues that can benefit the Village while 'trying' or 'linking' the developed parcel to the (Village Center) and (County Line Square) to promote all businesses and best serve our community," the mayor said in the May 31, 2019, email. "Does JLL provide consultant/guidance services at this stage?"

A couple of hours later, Daniel Grasso responded.

"Let me talk to a couple of people, and I'll get back to you," he said in an email from his JLL account.

In an email to Patch in 2021, Daniel Grasso said, "There was no further interest or additional inquiries about this property. I am unaware of the current status of the sale."

Patch obtained the latest batch of emails from former Burr Ridge Trustee Zach Mottl, who received them through a public records request.

In an email, Mottl noted Grasso said he would introduce Ishikawa to Walter by email. The village did not turn over such an email.

Mottl filed a complaint with the attorney general's office, saying it appeared the village withheld the email when it should have released it.