Mayor Donald Peloquin said this week that city officials are nearing an agreement with a developer that would give the city its first significant burst of retail development in years.
“We’re looking for a major commercial development,” Peloquin said after Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
The commercial buildings, including a big-box retailer, would sit on about 50 acres at the southeast corner of 119th Street and Vincennes Road.
The site is currently marred by long-shuttered businesses, including a former car dealership and a dry cleaner.
Peloquin declined to disclose the specifics of the negotiations, but he said the development would immediately double the city’s sales tax base and provide the springboard for a potential townhouse project on other open land near the Metra train station on Vermont Street.
“We hope to have a more defined plan of what we want to see there, but at this point, it’s just in the discussion stages,” Peloquin said.
He said other land near the site, located about a mile west from an Interstate Highway 57 interchange, also is being eyed for light industrial development.