Elmhurst Plan For Downtown Site Still Mystery

ELMHURST, IL – In April 2019, the Elmhurst City Council voted to buy an Addison Avenue commercial property for $2.3 million, but officials did not reveal what they wanted to do with it.

More than five years later, nothing much has changed. The tenants are largely the same.

Now, some say the building at 113-121 N. Addison Ave. could be sold to help pay for a new police station.

Now, three businesses are leasing space in the structure – The Club Shot & Beer, Coldwell Banker Realty and Maharaj Indian Grill. The Indian restaurant is where Pizza Palace was.

In a news release shortly after the 2019 meeting, the city mentioned options for the property such as open space for public programming and redevelopment.

In the April 2019 meeting, supporters of the purchase did not speak at all about it, let alone give a justification. Their decision followed a closed meeting.

But the two dissenting aldermen – Marti Deuter and Michael Bram – spoke out against it at the time.

"I like the concept of having the ability to influence the redevelopment of key sites," Deuter said. "That said, I think there are a lot of ways we can influence the development that falls short of acquisition."

She continued, "I have concerns about the high acquisition price, our ability to cover our costs for whatever time we hold this property and that we're taking this action without a clear plan in place for its use or redevelopment."

If a majority approved the purchase, Deuter urged the city to act quickly on its plan for the property.

Deuter said the city's consultants indicated developers are not known for their creative thinking.

"I think the burden is on us to really kind of lay the framework for something interesting to happen," said Deuter, who is resigning soon because she won the state representative election last month.

Bram agreed with Deuter.

"We haven't done our due diligence to verify that this is the right purchase price for this property," he said. "The purchase price for these parcels is more than I would like, especially since we don't have a basis to support our purchase price."

The vote for the purchase was 10-2. The supporters included Scott Levin, now the mayor, and his rival in next April's election, Mark Mulliner, a former six-term alderman.

At a meeting of the council's finance committee last week, Alderwoman Noel Talluto, the panel's chairman, mentioned the Addison property as something the city could sell. It was during a discussion about paying for the new police station.

In January 2023, the city staff drafted a memo listing the real properties that Elmhurst could sell to raise money. The Addison site was not included.

Another city property under consideration for sale is parkland on the east side acquired a half-century ago. It is the site of the old Elmhurst Hospital.

Neighbors are fighting to protect that land from development, forming a new group, Keep Elmhurst Green. They say the city needs what little green space it has left. The land is in Talluto's Ward 4.

They took note of Talluto's reference to the Addison site.

During public comments at this week's council meeting, resident Shelly Nicholson questioned why the Addison site wasn't listed in the 2023 memo.

"We understand that all the city real estate assets are not listed in the memo – we would not expect the city to consider selling the library or history museum," she said. "But why isn’t this property listed as a real estate asset? ... Five years later, we’re guessing the current value of that property to be much higher."

Talluto, who voted to buy the Addison building in 2019, did not respond to a message for comment.