Mary Jo Mullen and incumbent Chris Pecak are running for Lisle mayor in the April 1 election.
A strip mall at the entrance to downtown Lisle continues to sit vacant after a long-discussed redevelopment failed to materialize. Now, the future of the property has become an issue in the village’s mayoral race.
For years, there was hope that a developer would demolish the shuttered Family Square Plaza to make way for a large-scale apartment building with ground-floor commercial space, but that project did not move forward.
“A multiuse development like this is still feasible,” said Lisle Trustee Mary Jo Mullen, who’s challenging incumbent Mayor Chris Pecak, during a recent joint interview with the Daily Herald Editorial Board.
Pecak has suggested the empty shopping center at Ogden Avenue and Main Street — a gateway into the downtown — could be revived.
“That site is a commercial site, primarily. The purpose of that site should be for commerce. I have retailers interested in moving into that location,” he said.
A strip mall sits vacant at the southeast corner of Main Street and Ogden Avenue in downtown Lisle.
Paul Valade/pvalade@dailyherald.com, October 2024
GreenState Credit Union, formerly Oxford Bank, owns the Family Square property, Village Manager Eric Ertmoed confirmed.
Last month, GreenState Credit engaged CBRE, a commercial real estate services firm, to list and market the property for sale, Ertmoed said via email Tuesday.
In a letter to the village manager last year, the previous developer stated that “market forecasts, underwriting and having separately owned retail space ultimately created a risk profile” beyond “what we are comfortable executing.”
Pecak said he’s received “calls from many developers. I have retail stores that want to go into the existing strip mall.”
Is that the highest and best use of the property? Pecak said he’s not opposed to tall buildings.
However, “residential on the ground floor with no retail will be the death knell of Main Street downtown Lisle,” he said, contending that would drive up rental rates.
In 2022, the mayor vetoed an economic incentive and tax increment financing agreement for the project.
At the time, Pecak raised various written objections, including that it “fails to advance the new downtown comprehensive plan to bring retail, restaurants, and entertainment venues to Main Street.”
Mullen and other members of the then-village board subsequently voted to override the mayor’s veto.
“We had an opportunity to work with a good developer who came in and had a development that looked like what we wanted based on our long-term plan for downtown, a multiuse development, which is exactly what is outlined in our downtown plan,” Mullen said.
She also pushed back against the idea of having retailers move into the strip mall building.
“I think that’s not in accordance with the plan that we’ve laid out,” Mullen said. “The downtown master plan calls for mixed use in these areas.”
The Family Square redevelopment would have included roughly 24,000 square feet of commercial space on the main level.
“The 24,000 square feet may be something we have to negotiate,” Mullen said.
There also were plans for “live/work units” to allow local artisans and micro-business owners an opportunity to have a small storefront in front that would be attached to their apartment behind it, she noted.
“Something like that enables us to kind of bring in and incubate these micro-businesses and create small spaces in retail,” Mullen said.
The election is April 1.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
