Oak Park’s village government is ironing out a deal that would provide a sales tax rebate to the landlord of the long vacant former department store that will soon be a new Barnes & Noble location.
The village’s board of trustees was set to vote on a sales tax incentive package at its Aug. 5 meeting that would’ve seen the village rebate 50% of the sales tax revenue it received from sales at the Barnes & Noble location back to the building owner. The measure was tabled from that meeting’s agenda, as the building owner requested to renegotiate elements of the deal, according to Oak Park’s Assistant Village Manger for Economic Vitality John Melaniphy.
Melaniphy said that none of the major figures in the deal will change before the item comes back before the board. The village wants its deal with the landlord solidified well before the landlord is set to turn over the space to Barnes & Noble on November 1, he said.
“We were disappointed that we weren’t able to move forward at the last village board meeting, but we will in the near future,” Melaniphy said. “The landlord decided to postpone the village board agenda item to refine the terms of the agreement, and I expect the landlord to provide revisions in the coming weeks. None of these items will materially change the deal’s terms.”
The Oak Park board meets next on Sept. 9 following a month-long summer hiatus.
The building — the former Marshall Field and Company department store site at 1144 Lake St. At the intersection of Lake Street and Harlem Avenue — has sat vacant for well over a decade. Its last tenant that produced sales tax revenue was a Borders bookstore location, which closed in 2011 when the company went under.
The near century old building is owned by the entity 1144 Lake Street LLC which is run by Nicholas Karris, according to state business records. Building ownership is also seeking local historic landmark status for the building, according to the village.
The proposed rebate deal is set to go forward as a 20-year agreement, which would pay Karris’ firm no more than $2 million over the life of the contract. No village sales tax funds would be rebated to the Barnes & Noble corporation through this deal, Melaniphy said.
“The posture of the village is to rehabilitate this 100-year old building and any incentive would be focused on that objective, no funds would be provided to Barnes & Noble,” Melaniphy said.
The building has had a set of structural issues that have made it difficult for new businesses to make the space productive, which makes the village’s economic incentives necessary, Melaniphy said.
“The space has been vacant for more than 12 years and has generated no sales tax productively over that time period and the property taxes reflect the vacancy of the space,” he said. “Both of those revenue streams could be enhanced with the rehabilitation and occupation of the space.”
The village had previously worked on a sales tax incentive package to help convert the space into a Dom’s Kitchen & Market grocery store location, but that deal went fell apart in 2022 before the company closed all its locations in 2024.
Karris’ firm is set to spend $4 million on renovations before turning the property over to Barnes & Noble this fall, according to the village.
The bookstore is expected to open in the summer of 2026 as a 25,000 foot two story store with a cafe, company leadership told Wednesday Journal last month. The Oak Park location is expected to employ 60 people, according to the village.
Following the closing of The Book Table early this year, two independent and locally owned bookstores have either opened in Oak Park. Dandelion Bookshop is open at 139 S. Oak Park Ave and The Book Loft opened in a portion of the space previously occupied by the Book Table last weekend.