With the owners hoping to fill a longtime empty storefront, the Glencoe Village Board has approved a plan that would eventually permit construction of a 45-foot-building in the Hubbard Woods Plaza shopping center.
On April 20, village trustees voted 5-1 allowing a special use permit for a height variance requested for a building in the southeast corner Hubbard Woods Plaza, the irregularly shaped shopping center on Green Bay Road, close to the Glencoe-Winnetka border.
The storefront has sat vacant for nearly five years
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since Walgreen’s moved out and opened another store on Green Bay Road in the northern edge of Winnetka.In 2021, the village issued United Investors, the shopping center owners, a permit for a two-story building at the site, but construction never began with company president George Giannoulias citing inflationary pressures.
Last year, United Investors contacted village officials about allowing a 45-foot high building that would exceed the area’s zoning district’s 33-foot height limit, according to village documents.
“In discussions with the village there were some scale savings in going to a third floor,” Giannoulias said.
The owners eventually requested a zoning code amendment allowing permitting a three-story, 45-foot building that would include both the former Walgreen’s store plus the former Domino’s Pizza site immediately to the north.
Overall, the structure would encompass nearly 35,000 square feet with nine new garage parking spaces that would be accessible from an alley behind the existing building.
However, aspects of the proposed plan drew some concerns because of the initial configuration of the second and third floors, where elevator access would only be available from Scott Avenue behind the building.
Winnetka officials were worried about an overflow of people parking on the site of the border and they requested a reconfiguration of the elevator access making it easier from Green Bay Road side.
Those fears appear have been eased for now.
“Glencoe has shared with us that the developer plans to redesign the first floor such that now (someone) going to the second and third floors can get to the elevators more directly from the parking lot,” Winnetka Community Development Director David Schoon said.
Winnetka also requested Glencoe conduct an overall parking study and it was later concluded there was enough parking for the shopping center.
On April 20, Glencoe trustees approved the permit with a condition that the elevator be accessible from the shopping center parking lot entrance on Green Bay Road. However, Trustee Dudley Onderdonk voted no as he would have preferred a specific plan from the owners on how physically challenged individuals would get into the building from the north parking lot.
United Investors now faces the task of locating a tenant for the long empty store. Joe Padorr, a real estate broker representing the owners, appeared at an April Zoning Commission stating the building has drawn potential interest from retail outlets, restaurants, grocery stores, medical space and office space, according to the minutes of the meeting.
Padorr added it is hard to sign up tenants before a property has been placed on the open market.
In the next step of the process, United Investors is tentatively scheduled to appear before the village’s plan commission on May 24 seeking exterior appearance approval, according to Glencoe Development Services Manager Taylor Baxter.
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.