Dupage Policy Journal

Members of the Lisle Village Board met Dec. 10 to discuss the future of a plot in the village and its commercial prospects, during the village board's monthly meeting.

Trustee Cathy Cawiezel said residents are considering an arrangement that would use $10 to 12 million in "incremental real estate taxes from the taxing bodies to a private developer" to turn the property into a mixed-use facility combining commercial and residential space, according to a YouTube video of the meeting.

She added that developer is "not expressing much optimism" about the commercial prospects of the ground floor of the property. The property is privately owned, and Cawiezel said zoning rules would have to be rewritten if commercial use isn't possible. She asked Mayor Christopher Pecak to elaborate on the commercial interest in the site.

Pecak said that he has both taken and made calls to developers, "but the fact remains, each time someone is guided towards the control of the property, terms just simply can't be met," he said at the meeting.

The lack of interest surprised the mayor.

"I question how a 10, 10 and a half, 12, 12-and-a-half-million-dollar incentive can't be incentive enough to create the commercial environment to sustain a business and then secondarily build a residential around that in order to make it the target of the project that we saw in the first place," Pecak said at the meeting.

Cawiezel said an apartment complex developer had been interested at one point, but that idea had been shot down. Pecak added that while he had heard of several who were interested in the property, including the library, grocery stores, a hardware store and others, none of them had met the requirements for the space and the terms of the developer.

The developer, Flaherty & Collins, has had problems filling its commercial space, despite receiving overall support from Pecak, who vetoed a tax increment financing incentive to fund the redevelopment of the property earlier this year.

The site would have approximately 25,000 square feet available on the ground floor, but Pecak emphasized that the village had failed to come to terms with Flaherty & Collins. Officials said during the meeting that the library idea had been rejected as it would be a "non-revenue-generating" use for the property.