Woodridge Village Board | Woodridge website
Woodridge Village Board | Woodridge website
At its Jan. 19 meeting, the Woodridge village board approved an amendment paving the way for a U-Haul facility in the village.
The area is at 7300 Woodward within the Centerpointe Shopping Center. One of the main anchors of this shopping district vacated in 2017, and now U-Haul proposes to take it over. Several of the other main stores in this area have also more recently left. The business plans to make 139,376 square feet of the 176,376 in the building storage for its vehicles and containers with the remaining 37,000 unplanned for now.
“In general, it's commercial use,” Director of community development Kimberly Clarke said. “We all know the commercial market right now is pretty challenging, especially with large footprints such as this. But there is a retail component to this that will hopefully also add some additional sales tax to the area. We emphasized maintenance of the use and the property and then also the site will be redeveloped, which we know since 2017 it has been sitting here vacant. So we believe it is meeting some of the intentions of the comprehensive plan.”
The board was told the business would allow for rental and use of its trucks from this facility as well, and might plan for some outdoor storage as well. It has additional parking and loading spaces in the front of the building and will have garage doors into the facility. It has done studies to ensure that the pre-existing amount of traffic in the area will not become too much with the increased vehicular traffic from the business, and to ensure all truck size would have adequate space to maneuver around the facility. All of these operations besides the truck storage would be allowed through the current Shopping District zoning, and the petitioner had asked for a special use permit through the PUD for that storage usage.
The planning and zoning committee had reviewed the proposal in December and recommended by a vote of 3-2 to deny the request based on traffic concerns and storage aesthetics in the area.
The village board passed the motion given that an amendment be made that additional signage for traffic would be put up and the traffic flow would be reviewed after 90 days and then 180 days to see if any additional signs or changes need to be made.
The council also discussed an ordinance to amend the village’s water service rate and charges from $1,10 to $1.20 per thousand gallons.
The council will meet again at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Village Hall on 5 Plaza Drive.
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