McHenry County Blog

Mayor Aaron Shepley can.

Want to know where?

It’s in the shopping center where Wal-Mart and Cub Foods are located.

Wal-Mart, of course, is moving into a mega-store out on Route 31 and Cub Food will close December 1st, its manager told McHenry County Blog.

That will leave most of the outlying stores with less traffic, perhaps leading to their demise.

What will remain will be land.

A big chunk of it, with a potential view of Vulcan Lakes.

The current Cub/Wal-Mart shopping center may not end up as bleak as the first outlet mall in Kenosha. While driving to Wisconsin for my grand nephew’s baptism, we saw its buildings standing with a “land for sale” sign out front.

But it is not a big leap to see bulldozers taking down all the buildings and a big developer building something like Deer Park.

Shepley said that an opportunity exists because Algonquin’s Galleria has not blossomed as its village fathers expected.

The Mayor told Crystal Lake Kiwanis Club members Wednesday at Duke O’Brien’s that sales tax for the Commons was coming in about half as high as had been projected.

He also noted that across Randall Road a Brunswick Zone (a fancy bowling alley) was being talked about where Algonquin had hoped for a high-end department store in the Galleria.

“Crystal Lake for years was the retail center for McHenry County,” Shepley explained. Then, came the Commons in Algonquin. It’s “performing at about 50% of its projections.”

“That’s given us an opportunity of sorts,” Shepley said.

He’s thinking of a “lifestyle center a la Deer Park.”

Shepley thinks it is “a better model (where one) can park centrally and go to all the stores. The backdrop is a beautiful lake.”

I asked if the city was contemplating putting it in a tax increment financing district.

Shepley replied that his vision was “irrespective of whether it’s in the TIF.”

It was not included in the Vulcan Lakes-Route 14 TIF.

When asked if it might be put in a TIF, Shepley answered,

We’re not moving in the direction of including it in the TIF.

The property in question includes where the Salvation Army sought to open a large store with a drop box outside.

The Crystal Lake City Council rejectd the idea. Perhaps this explains at least part of the reason why.