Some Northbrook officials may get a second chance to have the kind of development at 1000 Skokie Boulevard they said they wanted, even though the current project was approved last year.
It’s possible that part of the 18-acre development approved for the key parcel could go back through the approval process to replace one of its three components, a large Arizona-based child-care center that has yet to comply with a development agreement with the village of Northbrook.
The project anchored and developed by Life Time Fitness for the long-vacant former ComEd property was approved by the Northbrook Village Board on Sept. 27. The project includes a big fitness club, a 304-unit apartment building and a 43,000 square-foot Children’s Learning Adventure day care/enrichment center. The child care center was planned to include two dance rooms and a bowling alley, a TV studio and “commercial kitchen” classroom, as well as a 40,000-square-foot playground, planners said.
But Northbrook Plan Commissioner Steve Elisco said the development’s three components would make up “a campus of exclusivity” that didn’t have much to do with the surrounding community or each other. His panel recommended the project not be built, though the Northbrook Village Board approved it 4-3.
In December, it was revealed that Children’s Learning Adventure had yet to buy its third of the property, a qualification for the development agreement with the village. Village board members let the rest of the project go forward without it, giving CLA some time to settle with Life Time.
“I’m not letting this go on forever,” Village President Sandy Frum said Dec. 20. “If they’re not signed within the next two or three months, I want to revoke the special permit.”
More Top Picks Best Streaming Key Lights
Frum recently said that her board plans to discuss at their March 14 meeting whether to schedule a vote to revoke CLA’s special permit.
Children’s Learning Adventure, asked by Pioneer Press in early February to discuss the status of its bid to build in Northbrook, replied by email.
“CLA is still very excited about building in the Northbrook community – we are not done here,” wrote Daniel R. Petersen, vice president of development for Children’s Learning Adventure Childcare Centers. “We are working on a revised site plan to present to Lifetime Fitness for their consideration (since they are the land owner). Once we get further into the process, we will be back in front of the city with our revised plan.”
Such a change, according to Frum, would have to be vetted in Plan Commission public hearings and approved by a Northbrook Village Board vote. But three weeks later, no proposal has been received by the village, she said, and Life Time hasn’t received anything, either, according to that Minnesota-based firm.
“We have had minimal contact with them and cannot confirm whether they plan to move forward with the site or not,” Life Time Fitness spokeswoman Natalie Bushaw told Pioneer Press, via e-mail on Feb. 28.
Petersen did not return follow-up calls.
Last December, Petersen said that Northbrook limiting the capacity of the facility to 500 children instead of about 700 was making it less feasible.
Northbrook Trustee James Karagianis, who heads the Village Board’s Building and Zoning Committee, said recently he would be glad to see something replace the child care center that served the apartment-dwellers more, and brought in sales tax income for the village.
“I’m thinking a beauty shop and an in-and-out grocery store (such as a convenience store), a barbershop, a nice restaurant, something to support a complex like that,” he said.
“If not these things, what else could it be? Offices? Is there a robust enough market for that? I don’t think so.”
There probably wouldn’t be room for a big-box retailer, he said.
“If they had something retail there, open to the public that doesn’t require membership,” the new component could make the project less of a “campus of exclusivity,” Elisco said. “There’s nothing like, ‘OK, kids, get in the car’ – there’s nothing for them to do, to go to. Nothing inviting, lively, or that brings in sales tax.”
He said that if the special permit is revoked, handling a proposal for something new might be tough.
“The problem is, the parking was approved based on the combination of Life Time Fitness and Children’s Learning Adventure,” planned to be next to each other, he said. “Now the whole formula is going to change.”
Sheryl Zeidman, who led neighborhood opposition to the approved project, had earlier said that a park belonged on the whole site, in the middle of an area of the village with no large Northbrook Park District amenity.
“The neighborhood is still not in favor of any part of this project,” she said. “We don’t want Life Time or the apartments there, either.”
Twitter @IrvLeavitt