A developer is in the process of trying to bring a Chick-fil-A restaurant to Waukegan.
Several city officials like the idea, but not all are excited about the proposed location, at the southeast corner of Northpoint Boulevard and Waukegan Road.
Joe Goodman, the director of leasing and brokerage for Wilmette-based developer Terraco Real Estate Services, said his company believes this site is ideal and scoffed at the idea of finding a different location in the area, near the Fountain Square shopping center.
“Chick-fil-A has marked this site, and this site only, as their desired location,” Goodman said at a meeting of the Waukegan City Council’s Community Development Committee on Jan. 6. “The property is on a hard corner of a major commercial thoroughfare.”
While the committee voted 3-2 to recommend the project for City Council consideration, the Waukegan Planning & Zoning Commission gave it a negative recommendation on Sept. 12.
Ald. Thomas Hayes, 9th Ward, the committee chair, said he likes the idea of Chick-fil-A, but has concerns about putting it on the east side of Waukegan Road, which is lined with industrial buildings including some of the area’s major employers.
“I don’t fear change, although I do fear the city becoming a city of exceptions and carveouts by rezoning what was intended to be light industrial and manufacturing use in the city making way for entertainment space when there’s entertainment space directly across the street,” Hayes said.
The City Council is scheduled to vote whether to grant Chick-fil-A’s request for a zoning change and other relief at 7 p.m. on Jan. 21 at City Hall despite objections from two of the community’s major businesses that would be the proposed restaurant’s neighbors.
As Waukegan Road goes north from the southern city limits to Northpoint, it is lined with light industrial and warehouse businesses on both sides of the street until it reaches Lakehurst Road, and on the east side from Lakehurst to Northpoint.
The proposal is to create a new lot in the Northpoint Business Center between Astronics Connectivity Systems & Certification, which provides technology to the aerospace industry, and Overture, a business that creates branded merchandise, but those corporations do not want Chick-fil-A there.
Overture CEO JoAnn Gilly said putting a restaurant on the east side of the street shows a “lack of integrity in the zoning process.” There are numerous alternatives on the west side where there is available space, she said.
“This building was zoned for light industrial,” Gilley said. “There’s a whole area on the west side of Waukegan with a whole lot of restaurants, hotels, a casino. The idea of putting one on our side of the street boggles the mind.”
Goodman said he recognizes the west side of Waukegan Road has a variety of retail businesses, including numerous restaurants and growth in the area, but he said Chick-fil-A is unwilling to consider them.
“They do not want to go off the main thoroughfare into Fountain Square, where there are already site restrictions,” Goodman said.
Astronics President Michael Kuehn said his company manages 112 million square feet of manufacturing space in the U.S. and Europe, and none of them have retail stores or restaurants in their midst.
Kuehn said his biggest concern is safety for the people in the area. Sidewalks and streetlights can be added, but it will not change human behavior. Hundreds of people a day will be added to the traffic mix as they go to the restaurant.
“I’ve been in Waukegan long enough to see people zooming in and zooming out of the parking lot, and they’re going to do the same thing when they think that turn is for Chick-fil-A,” Kuehn said. “This is real life and real people. When you deal with real life, people do silly things.”
Concerns about putting a restaurant in an area zoned for light industrial use bothered enough members of the Plan Commission like Theodora Anderson to vote against recommending the project, though she said she would be, “very excited to have Chick-fil-A come to Waukegan.”
“Now we’re going to change a zone, and we’re hearing from the business owners there it really does impact a business and their uses,” Anderson said at the Sept . 12 meeting. “This is light industrial and research. Let’s keep it that way.”
A $780 million business with its stock trading at $16 a share, Kuehn said Astronics plans to bring another 200 workers to the Waukegan facility this year. Gilley said Overture’s facility contains 250,000 square feet of office and warehouse space. Its sales last year were $280 million.
