A four-story Oak Park office building, which a group of business leaders hoped to build years ago on Madison Street, has been delayed for a third time.
It’s been about three years since the group bought a parking lot from the village to construct upscale office space. But the economy has slumped, and the lots, on the south side of Madison at Highland, have remained undeveloped.
Last week, the village board granted a third delay to the group of local investors, calling themselves Madison Highlands LLC. With the approval, they have until Feb. 16 to apply for building permits and until Feb. 16, 2013 to finish construction.
According to Mary Jo Schuler, head of the development team, they’re still looking for an “anchor” tenant to take up at least 20 percent of the 75,000 square feet of office space. The Park District of Oak Park’s gymnastics program was the original preference as that anchor, but the deal fell apart in December. Instead, the park district signed a contract last month to purchase the vacant Aldi grocery store at 25 Lake St.
“Once you get an anchor, it creates a domino effect, so that is what we’re working hard on,” Schuler said.
No entities have committed to renting out space in the office building yet, and Madison Highlands would need to have at least 40 percent of it leased to get a construction loan for the $16 million project. Ideally, Schuler said, they’d like to break ground before the winter. But if that doesn’t happen, their team will reconvene in January to figure out whether they should shift gears.
Though the board unanimously approved the delay, village trustees expressed concern last week that the village needed to do more to help the Madison and Highland project come to fruition.
“We’ve heard the ‘very close’ statement for some time,” said Trustee Ray Johnson. “Has there really been a concerted effort to work with this developer to close the deal and to make this go forward? We need this to happen.”