Vacant Strip Mall's Owner Plans Mixed-Use Development On Dempster

SKOKIE, IL — The owner of a vacant strip mall in Skokie proposes building a mixed-use development on the site.

According to a legal notice of public hearing scheduled for next week, the longtime owner of the property on the northeast corner of Dempster Street and Ewing Avenue has asked for a zoning map amendment to allow for both residential and commercial units.

The zoning change would convert the five parcels at 3320 to 3340 Dempster St. from B2 Commercial to NX Neighborhood Mixed use.

At the same Plan Commission hearing, village staff have recommended an amendment to village code that would adjust allowable floor-area-ratio in the mixed-use zoning district.

Property records show a trust transferred owners of the property to its current owner, MN CDK LLC Series 3320 Dempster, in September 2017.

Nathan Kriska, a Northfield-based architect and recently retired longtime village staffer, is the manager of the corporate entity that owns the property.

"The village wants to upgrade a lot of the B district, because it benefits the village with getting rid of a lot of these dilapidated and old run down shopping centers," Kriska told Patch, pointing to a series of approved or completed mixed-use developments around Skokie.

"This project is going to be smaller than that by quite a bit," he said. "It's like a four-story on Dempster, but to make the neighbors feel that they're not being overshadowed, it's only three-stories on the alley side so it's not so high for the single-family [homes to the north.]"

Kriska was, until this spring, a supervisor in the community development department, serving as the liaison to the appearance commission, according to the village website. He said he previously designed a completed mixed-use development in Chicago.

Copies of the plans submitted as part of the proposal were not immediately available from village staff Tuesday. The commission hearing on the project is set for Aug. 19.

If the zoning chapter amendment proposed by the village and the zoning map amendment proposed by Kriska's LLC are both approved, those site plans will only require relief from a few parking lot requirements, including reducing the width of stalls to 8 feet, 6 inches.

Kriska said the strip mall currently has 17 parking spaces, but the mixed-use development he is proposing would more than double that.

"A lot of local communities — Wilmette, Evanston, a lot of surrounding communities — allow an 8-foot, 6-inch stall, instead of the village's 9-foot [requirement,]" he said. " So we're just trying to be more in line with what surrounding communities are doing, and by going to 8'6" it allows one or two more parking spaces, so we don't burden the neighborhood."