The Walgreens project in downtown Batavia has been delayed — again.
It’s been five years since Batavia Enterprises asked Walgreens to review a plan to build a new store with a drive-through at a new downtown location, the developers said. After years of debate, the city signed off on an agreement to provided $1.143 million in financial incentives for the project in February, and now the developers say they need more time to finalize the lease with Walgreens.
“Typically, it takes six to nine months (to negotiate a lease) with Walgreens,” said Austin Dempsey, vice president for Batavia Enterprises. “They have 8,000 stores and a lot of things going on. There is a certain process that we have to follow with them.”
Dempsey said that because so much time lapsed since Walgreens’ original approval, Batavia Enterprises had to resubmit plans to be re-approved by Walgreens. That backed the process up, and now the two sides are working out the details on the lease, he said.
The city council’s joint committee of the whole gave preliminary approval to the request for an extension of another 120 days this week. Dempsey said that it’s likely they won’t need the full 120 days.
“They have indicated that they believe the issues will be resolved earlier, but wanted to avoid taking the Council’s time with repeated requests,” city administrator Bill McGrath said in a memo to aldermen. “Due to the importance of the project and the fact that no conditions have changed since the original approval in terms of downtown development goals, staff supports the request.”
Under the new deadline, Dempsey said he’s hoping to have the building at 122 W. Wilson St. demolished before the end of the year. The new Walgreens will likely be ready by October 2015 or the spring of 2016, he said. When the lease is signed, Batavia Enterprises can begin renovating and marketing the building that currently houses Walgreens at 138 W. Wilson St., he said.
“The net of this is that in two years Batavia will have a brand new Walgreens and we hope, a new retail anchor downtown,” Dempsey said.
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City staff and the developers spent more than three years working on a deal that would allow Walgreens to move from its current location in a downtown strip mall to build a new, bigger store at 122 W. Wilson St., on the site of the old Swanson’s Hardware and Prairie Path Cycles. The developers maintain that they needed the financial incentives from the city to make the deal profitable, considering that the site has considerable issues, including a major storm drain line that needs to be moved and caissons that must be built because of the poor soil.
The redevelopment project calls for the city to provide $450,000 upfront for the site issues, and then $65,000 annually from its TIF funds. Those are funds that come from property taxes on properties in the downtown area, including the Walgreens site, that are set aside for improvements that will increase the properties’ value.
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