McDonald’s is back with revised plans for a restaurant at the former Galewood Walgreens location on the section of North Avenue between Mobile and Narragansett avenues.
The proposal presented at Ald. Chris Taliaferro’s community meeting last week amends original plans, which were presented in May. As before, they called for demolishing the building to put up a new McDonald’s with a drive-through with customers primarily using the existing North Avenue entrance. But while McDonald’s previous plans had customers use two ordering lanes out front and pick up the orders in the back. The new rendering flipped the configuration, with two drive-through lanes in the back and pick-up windows in the front. Garbage receptacles were moved away from homes.
McDonald’s representatives in attendance indicated that the chain was planning to lease the property.
Any development with a drive-thru must be approved by the Chicago Zoning Board of Appeals, which tends to defer to local aldermen.
Dan Olson, vice president at project architect Watermark Engineering Resources, said that the new building will be about 4,000 square feet, and have 47 parking spaces – two more than originally proposed. The drive-through lanes can accommodate up to 17 cars at the time. He said that they will put in a 6-foot-tall synthetic wood fence on the north side. The plans show trees planted on the other three sides of the property.
Luay Aboona, the traffic engineer for the project, said that while McDonald’s would increase traffic on Mobile Avenue, he didn’t believe it would significantly affect traffic on North Avenue and other major streets.
He said he found that another factor at play with troublesome traffic in the area is the length of time the lights stay green. North Avenue is a state highway, and the Illinois Department of Transportation gives longer green lights to vehicles traveling east-west and vehicles traveling north-south.
“It’s not going to add to the fact that it’s a busy corridor,” he said.
When asked about customers turning into McDonald’s from Ridgeland Avenue via North Avenue, Aboona said they considered adding a turn lane at the North Avenue entrance, but there simply wasn’t enough “green time” to make it work.
“The state is not going to allow to have any green time taking away from North Avenue,” he said.
Residents also expressed concerns about the fact that the drive-thru will be open 24/7. Taliaferro said that this isn’t set in stone.
“But if it’s something that’s the concern to the community, that’s something that we need to let McDonald’s know,” he said.
Taliaferro said he plans to hold a few more meetings this winter. While he didn’t want to hold up McDonald’s too much, he didn’t want to rush through the process, either. He declined to give a timeline for when the proposal might go before ZBA.
Walgreens closed in 2015. It served as a COVID-19 testing site at the height of the pandemic, but otherwise has remained vacant. The site ended up in foreclosure in 2022, and it was purchased in an auction by a company that, according to the Illinois Secretary of State data, is owned by executives at Manhattan-based Tokio Marine HCC insurance company. In late June 2023, the property was purchased by Chicago developer Troutman & Dams.
Pickleball coach Johnny McKerr previously expressed interest in temporarily using the space for indoor pickleball courts, but Taliaferro told this publication that he decided against it after realizing that he would need to spend around $100,000 on a brand-new ventilation system.
Car wash
The meeting also featured a presentation by the owners of the carwash group that plans to open a location on the west end of Galewood, at the long-vacant lot at 1933 N. Harlem Ave.
While McDonald’s project must be approved by the Chicago zoning board of appeals because they are building a drive-thru, the car wash project faces no zoning hurdles. The owners said that since they were looking to be a “neighborhood carwash,” they wanted to introduce themselves to Galewood – a gesture that Taliaferro said he appreciated.
They own Sudz Express with car washes in the Hermosa and Beverly neighborhoods. Brenda Podrumedic, who represented the car wash at the meeting, said that they expect to wash around 250 cars a day. The car wash is automatic, and there will be 22 parking spaces equipped with vacuums. Podrumedic said they will be open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
She said that while there will be lights, they will be pointed down, so they don’t disrupt the nearby homes. They will also have a 6-foot fence to dampen noise.
“We don’t allow radios and engine cleaning,” Podrumedic said. “We’re very diligent about policing these sorts of activities.
As with the McDonald’s proposal, residents expressed concerns about traffic – this time along Harlem Avenue. Taliaferro said that Milwaukee District West Line Metra trains crossing the street a few blocks north create back-ups during rush hours, both because they block intersections and because of commuters driving to and from the nearby Elmwood Park and Montclare stations.
Podrumedic said that while they haven’t done a formal traffic study, based on their experience in other locations, they expect most of the traffic in the afternoons. But she said that they would be willing to study the traffic issues and adjust accordingly.
Taliaferro said that he’d had concerns about a Starbucks that opened closer to the train tracks on North Harlem Ave. But he said that since it opened early this year, “the only thing that would cause backup is a CTA bus or a school bus.”
Taliaferro said that after the lot has been vacant for so long, he was happy to see something go in.
“In my eight years as an alderman, this is the first time someone has been interested in this site,” he said. “I’m just excited just to have someone who is interested.”
