Downtown Glenview Development Wins Preliminary Board Approval

GLENVIEW, IL — A divided village board last week granted preliminary approval to a mixed-use development proposed for the former Bess Hardware site in downtown Glenview. Trustees are set to give final consideration to the plans Tuesday before the village's appointed appearance commission concludes the approval process the following week.

The five-story design is planned for a 1-acre parcel at 1850 Glenview Road that has sat vacant for nearly a decade since the closure of the hardware store.

Three years ago, the village board decided to buy the property for $2.25 million in an effort to reduce blight. Following a land swap with Metra, trustees reviewed eight offers, shortlisted four and approved a $1.81 million purchase and sale agreement with local developer The Drake Group in June 2018.

The village board must approve plans for the development before it can get the money from the land sale. After a series of plan commission meetings, three commissioners last month recommended the village board approve the plan. Two called for it to be rejected.

At the Feb. 18 village board meeting, trustees voted 4-2 to sign off on the plans following more than four hours of presentations and comments. Trustees Chuck Gitles, John Hinkamp, Mike Jenny and Karim Khoja were in favor. Trustees Mary Cooper and Debby Karton voted against it.

The proposal calls for 68 "luxury" rental units, the majority of which would be one-bedroom apartments ranging between about 700 to 900 square feet. It was not clear from materials provided by the village what monthly rents are being contemplated, and developer Tom Drake has not responded to a voicemail or written questions.

The ground floor would also include 3,000 square feet of ground floor retail space, which would be occupied entirely by bakery Sweet Mandy B's. It would also include 88 parking spaces.

Residents and dissenting trustees raised concerns about the density of the development, its appearance and its impact on parking and traffic. Nearly 1,000 people signed a petition opposing the development.

Village President Jim Patterson said debate over the development has been contentious. But, he noted, it has remained courteous, which is not always the case in discussions before the board.

"We have had a variety of challenging decisions, and I assure you, to sit here, whatever side you're on, there's always someone who disagrees with whatever we conclude," Patterson said. "And it really doesn't matter, whether it's a sidewalk — some people want it, some people don't — whether it's a project in another part of town. There's always a vote that we're taking that is kind of an ugly thing to sit through."

Jenny said he was comfortable that all the major issues of concern raised by residents had been addressed. He said the parking problem had either already been solved or would be solved, and any traffic impact from the development would be minimal. Jenny suggested there was a cost to doing nothing, and waiting to approve the plan before the board could be risky.

"What is the precedent if we go through this process and, in effect, say, 'Nevermind, we're going to start over?'" Jenny asked.

Despite the development mobilizing some residents to attend village meetings and oppose the project, Jenny said he has heard support for the project from local business owners. Downtown businesses, he said, need more people in the area if they are to survive, and the proposed apartment building would have a "different type of resident there that's not going to use their car as much," so fewer parking spaces should be needed.

Gitles said the development had support from people who had not been attending board and commission meetings, and adding a transit-oriented development to the center of town would help sustain the local retail environment.

"Bringing residents to live in the downtown area will only benefit the businesses that are there by having them be walking distance," Gitles said.

Khoja said he was likely to list his home in The Glen neighborhood for sale once his children graduate high school. Building the proposed development could increase his chance of staying in town, he suggested.

"I want to move to a cool downtown, and it doesn't have to be downtown Chicago," Khoja said. "We could make downtown Glenview cool, where I stay here and me and my wife could live in downtown Glenview, like other downtowns have vibrant — Evanston, Oak Park, Arlington Heights — if you look at all the downtowns there they have one thing in common. It's trains. People like to live around trains."

Hinkamp said the discussion of the Bess Hardware site is the rare occurrence where residents have been advocating on both sides of an issue. He said he discussed the plan with local business owners.

"No one was against it, and everyone that I talked to — and it wasn't a lot but it was a few — were all for it and really wanted it," Hinkamp said. "They thought that having people there would be nothing but positive to their businesses." He emphasized the Drake Group's offer was the best the village had received after marketing the site.

"I think this project is a first step toward downtown revitalization. You need foot traffic. You need people there. We have a lot of empty retail, and I think if we're going to fill that up and if we're going to support the retail that's there now — people say, 'There's no retail because no one goes there,' 'Well, no one's around, it's hard to get there,'" he said. "You're going to have people that can walk there."

Cooper said she was all in favor of revitalizing the village's downtown. But she suggested the proposal was denser than it needed to be to spark the area's renewal and could set a precedent for future large buildings.

"We really all want to revitalize our downtown and have it really articulate our brand and be a charming suburban community and I'm afraid if we go this dense it's just going to cascade through the rest of the town and become another Evanston or Oak Park," Cooper said, calling for a scaled-back version of the plans.

"I really feel like we, as the village, have got some skin in the game and the ability to impact it, because we have the control and currently own it, and I think we should just try to get it right and correct some of these details," she said. "I know we can't get them all right, but I think there's an opportunity to scale this to be a little bit more commensurate with what people would really like for the downtown, and I think we can still leverage it as the village continues to evolve."

Karton said the economics of the development meant it would not be financially feasible for anyone to build something small enough to assuage all concerns raised by opponents, although the process would have been eased by better communication with the community from the start.

"At the end of the day, we could agree with residents and say, 'This should be two stories, and that's all we want,' and it will never, ever, ever get built. Ever," Karton said. She said she would have preferred an increased setback from the street and a different color scheme.

"My personal opinion is that it is a great looking building. It is way too small of a site for that building, and that building is way too dark. It just is," she said. "I'm not saying it's not cool-looking, but this is not the city. This is the village of Glenview and every single building around it is light."

Karton said she disapproves of the village's ordinance that gives an appointed appearance commission the final approval of planned developments after they pass the village board. She suggested amending the code for future developments and postponing the board's second and final reading of the ordinance approving plans for the Bess Hardware site until after the appearance commission's approval. Other trustees did not support the idea.

Patterson explained the appearance commission gets to have final approval on architectural designs because they have expertise and relevant licenses, "instead of simply being whimsical." Karton said trustees were the ones accountable to the public, so they should have the absolute final say of what gets built in the village.

The village board is scheduled to give final consideration to the plan at its March 3 meeting. The appearance commission is set to a final vote on the site plans on March 11.

Watch full discussion from the Feb. 18, 2020, meeting of the Glenview Village Board of Trustees