Restaurant, Dollar Store Planned For Deerfield Shopping Center

DEERFIELD, IL — A brunch restaurant and a dollar store are set to open at the Cadwell's Corner shopping center, after village trustees on Monday signaled preliminary approval of the plans. The breakfast and lunch eatery would be the first permitted on the property since a ban on restaurants there was lifted two and a half years ago.

The new businesses will join the Planet Fitness that recently opened at the shopping center on the northeast corner of the intersection of Waukegan and Lake Cook roads in part of the space formerly occupied by a grocery store. Dollar Tree, the Chesapeake, Virginia-based discount retail chain, has signed a conditional lease for the rest of the space.

Brunch Cafe will be located on the south end of the shopping center along Lake Cook Road, pending final board approval of a special use permit. The breakfast and lunch restaurant, which opened its first location in 2008, currently has seven locations in Chicago's northwest suburbs and another in Scottsdale, Arizona. The cafe would be open seven days a week, from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and aims to serve alcohol.

The shopping center's owner has also asked for permission to update its color scheme established more than four years ago with the opening of Fresh Thyme Farmers Market, which closed its Deerfield location in May 2018.

"The existing color scheme was put into place, or dictated, by Fresh Thyme when they went into the center," Sean Devine, asset manager for property owner Norcor Cadwell Associates, told trustees at their Feb. 3 meeting. "We're not fans. We've talked to tenants in the market who are also not fans. Pretty much everyone I've talked to is not a fan of the reddish and the yellowish color combination that Fresh Thyme made us do."

Devine said the current look was "too busy," and a more neutral color scheme would be more attractive and hopefully attract tenants to reduce the vacancy at the center.

The village board originally forbid restaurants from the 39-year-old shopping center. The blanket prohibition was lifted in August 2017, but any eateries require special use permits.

"Since adoption of the Ordinance [lifting the ban], [Cadwell's Corners] has suffered from numerous tenant vacancies the most significant being Fresh Thyme in the anchor position," Devine said in a letter to the Deerfield Plan Commission last year. "The addition of Brunch [Cafe], along with Planet Fitness and Dollar Tree, should 'stabilize' [Cadwell's Corners] within the market which should serve to attract other high-quality tenants and drive daily customers to [the shopping center], benefiting other shop space tenants as well as [Deerfield] as a whole through reduced vacancy."

At the Feb. 3 village board meeting, Devine told trustees the operators of Brunch Cafe will comply with limitations on loading at the back of the shopping center, build a brick garbage enclosure and add additional landscape screening between the restaurant and a neighboring church. There would be a "zero tolerance policy for spilled garbage," he said.

The shopping center's representative said Brunch Cafe is "high-quality restaurant operation run by very experienced operators and open for breakfast and lunch only, no dinner, thereby mitigating the potential for adverse impacts and/or after-hours employees."

Mayor Harriet Rosenthal said the proposal was one of the best Devine had ever presented to trustees.

"Love the color change. I think it's great. I think it makes it look more today, more modern, up to date, I think that's great," Rosenthal said. "People are very excited about Dollar Tree."

"Really?" Devine said. "That's good to hear."

"People are stopping me different places and telling me how excited they are about that," Rosenthal said.

"I'm surprised the [Appearance Review Commission] allows that little logo to go along with the sign of Dollar Tree. But I think they did," the mayor added, referring to the proposed storefront logo.

"I think this is a great plan, congratulations," Rosenthal told Devine.

The village board is scheduled to give a first reading on Feb. 18 to the ordinance authorizing a special use permit for the restaurant and amending the planned development's approval to allow the exterior changes. Final approval is scheduled for the board's March 2 meeting.