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player ready...Lincolnshire officials and two businesses took another step last week that could, eventually, lead to the conversion of part of the local movie theater into apartments.
If the Village Board gives the plan final approval, the Regal Lincolnshire Stadium 21 & IMAX will tear down its south wing of screens, and the landowner it leases from will build what he described as luxury apartments there, according to those familiar with the proposal. The rest of the theater will undergo a renovation, reducing the number of seats while bringing in wider, more comfortable chairs.
Scott Greenberg, president of ECD Co., which owns some of the land and businesses in the CityPark shopping center, said he hoped to see final approval for the plan his company shares with Regal happen this spring.
“There’s a real important window,” he said after his group’s last meeting with the Village Board on Feb. 8. “We’ve got to get this thing approved by June.”
Greenberg’s idea calls for the demolition of six screens, upgrades for those that remain, and the addition of new food and alcohol offerings. The facility’s total capacity would drop from around 3,800 seats to approximately 1,700, but Greenberg said this would make it a more apt competitor for newer AMC screens in nearby suburbs, while retaining the popular IMAX screen.
Regal’s corporate office has not returned several calls for comment since Greenberg’s first meeting with Lincolnshire on Jan. 11.
After demolition of those screens, Greenberg said he would then build a pair of four-story, separate residences with 302 apartments inside. A four-story parking garage would house the tenants’ cars, and he said each deck would have its own entrance to the corresponding floor in the apartment buildings.
The intent, he said, is to attract Millennials and empty nesters who are wary of home ownership. Greenberg predicted that Lincolnshire’s major corporations — like Zebra Technologies, Grainger, Inc. and CDW — will be hiring young programmers and engineers soon, and that those new employees will be looking for a place near where they work to live, and spend.
“The number-one way to get talent is housing,” Greenberg said.
In January, Mayor Liz Brandt and others met with Greenberg. Brandt said after that meeting that she wanted him to have other ideas ready if the trustees deny his apartments. She said in a text message on Friday that the concerns she would need Greenberg to resolve include density and parking, and costs and tax contributions that both new operations would bring to Village Hall..
And even though his building is designed to let renters park as close to the front doors as possible, Greenberg said he foresaw young employees walking to nearby offices. Sidewalks already exist along parts of Milwaukee Avenue, Aptakisic Road and elsewhere in the business complex that adjoins CityPark to the north and west, but not every street has one.
“You won’t even feel the additional traffic,” he said of bringing apartments into a shopping center. “We generate three times as many ins and outs from a restaurant as we do from an apartment.”
The Village Board sent the plan to its architectural review board — the standard move it makes with most proposals. It will likely receive the plan back in a few weeks with a recommendation, but the trustees will have the final vote.
Greenberg said he hoped to tear the six screens down after the summer blockbusters end, and have the first wave of apartments open in fall 2017. The intent, he said, is to bring permanent use to a patch of land that spends most of the year as an empty parking lot.
“It’s nice to take something that’s fallow, and turn it into something wonderful.”
Twitter: @RonnieAtPioneer