When Lincolnwood Mayor Jesal Patel was elected in 2021, he resolved to work with village staff and the business community to find a way to breathe new economic life into the Lincolnwood Town Center, he told an audience of Lincolnwood Chamber of Commerce & Industry members recently.
The mall had been one of the biggest sales tax revenue generators in the village after it opened in 1990. But in 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, it went into foreclosure, leaving the future of the 31-acre, 2 million-square-foot mixed-use mall in the 3300 block of Touhy Avenue in doubt. It is currently open and for sale.
“I hear about Lincolnwood Town Center now more than anything,” Patel told a group of businesspeople during a May 17 “State of the Village” address at the Lincolnwood Community Center.
The Chamber-sponsored event provided Patel with a platform to talk about how the village is working to help businesses in the wake of COVID and continued challenges from online retailers.
The village has partnered with a real estate developer and a management group to figure out what it can do to help attract developers to restore the Lincolnwood Town Center’s economic vitality, said Patel.
“We’re hopeful a developer will see this and will come in,” he said. “We’re still working on the marketing effort. We stay engaged with the sellers, but it certainly is a long road. Nothing that I should expect that would happen overnight, and by overnight I mean the next five years.
“Projects like this do take a long time,” he explained. “We have patience and we know how to do it right. We certainly don’t put taxpayer money at risk and that’s a real important factor. I’m a real estate developer. I have no problem risking my own dollars, but that’s not the role I play here in the village.”
Patel, who served on the village board as a trustee since 2007 before being elected mayor in 2021, said there are at least two conceptual plans showing how the mall could be redeveloped. One shows the mall being completely razed and redeveloped, while another shows much of the existing mall being redeveloped.
“Showing these concepts gives developers an opportunity to see what we’re willing to do, what we might tolerate,” he said. “They have a greater willingness to engage in the property and propose a development.”
He also told the 150 people at the event that “District 1860,? a high-end, 8.47 acre, mixed use residential and retail complex on the site of the former Purple Hotel at Touhy and Lincoln Avenues is now open.
“I’m glad to say there will be life at that property,” he said. “It’s a testament to the staff and the board.”
An Amazon Fresh grocery store is slated to open on the west side of the building and a 152-room Marriott Hotel is planned for just north of there, Patel said.
He also used his address to reassure people that crime statistics are not as bad as the daily drumbeat of news might indicate.
“The city of Chicago is remarkably safe, folks,” he said.
“This is a great place to live and we live and die by Chicago,” he added. “It’s three of our borders. I don’t like to speak negatively about Chicago or about Illinois and more and more when I hear people speaking negatively, I want to stand up and speak for us. This is a great place to live. That’s why we all live here.”
Patel also said the village has a implemented a service first mentality to help businesses navigate the difficulties they sometimes encounter when dealing with municipal government.
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“Most of us on the board are business owners or work directly for business owners,” he said. “We don’t wait for problems to arise. We try to be as responsive and proactive as we can. We look at ways that we can manage our zoning code… manage regulations regarding what you can build. Where you can build. How you can build.”
He said that during his tenure as mayor the village has tackled issues like short-term rental regulations to stem the “nuisance” of VRBOs and Airbnbs, has made zoning changes to allow for a cannabis craft grower to open in the village, relaxed fencing requirements, adjusted landscape zoning and increased residential floor area ratios to promote more residential building.
“That has really done a lot to help promote construction in Lincolnwood,” he said. “We have more new construction in Lincolnwood than we have had in the last 15 years.”
In addition, the village has allowed for residential mixed-use buildings in what are typically business districts, Patel said.
“We want to see Lincoln Avenue, Devon Avenue, Touhy Avenue maximizing their building potential, their taxing potential, without a detriment to the village,” he added. “We understand that mixed use is very prevalent in development today.”
He also said the village’s population now stands at 13,463, the highest ever, and that it received about $9 million in sales tax revenue last year, the most since before the recession of 2008.
“We are here to listen,” he told the business leaders at the State of the Village address. “This is the biggest thing I can say to the business community and to residents. Reach out. We are very accessible. I don’t have a screen here with my cell phone number on it but it’s very easy to find me.”