A new Target store on 95th Street was approved by trustees, including two who were defeated by anti-store opponents.
The trustees elected April 5 will not be seated until next month, and Trustee Steven Rosenbaum, who represents the area, tried but failed to have the vote postponed. The store will be at Keeler Avenue between a Home Depot and an Advocate Christ Medical Center parking lot.
Acting Village President Ronald Stancik told the boisterous audience that the current board has studied the proposal for months and had “earned the right” to vote on it. A new board would have to restart negotiations from the beginning, he said.
The vote was 4-2 with Rosenbaum and Robert Streit dissenting.
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Plans call for the store to be built over a 273-spot parking lot. The atypical design is needed because the 5-acre parcel is smaller than the usual Target site.
Agreements with Home Depot and the hospital will provide additional parking along with a new 137-space lot north of the store.
Target will build and then sell that new parking lot to the village for $4.7 million, said City Manager Joe Faber. It will become a public lot that can be used by people attending games or other events at nearby Keeler Park.
Faber acknowledged the price sounds high, but it is reasonable considering that property along 95th Street is selling for about $2 million an acre without improvements.
The money for the lot will be raised with a 0.5 percent sales tax at the Target store. “Only people who shop at the Target will pay for the parking lot,” he said.
Rosenbaum said the project will add to traffic congestion on 95th Street and that allowing the company to build only 273 spots when village ordinances require more than 1,000 sets a bad precedent.
“This is too small of a site,” said resident Debbie Fagan. “It’s a bad plan, it’s been a bad plan and it’s always going to be a bad plan.”
But Stancik said the site, which is now a hotel, is zoned for commercial use and likely would become another store if not a Target. The village will gain about $750,000 in tax revenues annually from Target, he added.
But residents were unimpressed and starting shouting, “No shame! No shame! No shame!” as the board voted.
Others loudly called for a boycott of Target as they left the meeting.