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News
OK for Wal-Mart Center : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisOK for Wal-Mart Center
| Rt. 34 center will be largest in Kendall Co.
| by John Etheredge
| 3/17/2005
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The Oswego Village Board approved the annexation, zoning and preliminary plans for Prairie Market, the largest retail shopping center yet proposed in Kendall County in a series of unanimous ballots Monday evening.
As proposed by KDR Associates-Oswego, Prairie Market, when fully developed, will have in excess of 800,000 square feet of retail floor space and be anchored by a 202,000 square foot Super Wal-Mart store.
The center will be constructed on a 151 acre farm parcel located along the south side of U.S. Route 34, approximately one quarter mile east of Douglas Road.
At previous village board meetings, representatives of Wal-Mart have said they plan to begin construction on the store this spring in anticipation of an early 2006 opening.
The Super-Wal-Mart will be located towards the east end of the property, with additional anchor stores proposed on the balance of the property to the west. The center’s site plan also shows locations for numerous restaurants and other retail uses on outlots adjoining Route 34.
As part of the public improvements on the site, developers will install a section of Fifth Street immediately east of the Super Wal-Mart. The street will extend from Route 34 south and connect with a recently installed section of Fifth Street in the Churchill Club Subdivision that will connect with Wolf Road.
Traffic access to the center will be off the Fifth Street extension from the east and two signalized entrances on Route 34, one at Heritage Drive opposite the entrance to the Heritage of Oswego Subdivision, and another at Fifth Street.
A third, unsignalized entrance/exit drive is also planned off Route 34 between the signalized entrances at Heritage Drive and Fifth Streets.
As part of the project, Town & Country Homes of Lombard will develop 210 townhome units on a 23 acre parcel located immediately south of the shopping center.
Town & Country officials have advised the village they expect work will begin on the townhomes in about two and one-half years.
The board’s favorable ballots came after developers agreed to prohibit night time truck deliveries to stores in the center between midnight and 5 a.m. The board included the ban in the annexation agreement due to concerns that overnight deliveries might become a source of irritation for townhome residents.
The board also agreed to impose an 18 month freeze on the transition fees the village will collect from the development for the Oswego Fire Protection District.
After the board approved the Prairie Market Center, it adopted a new transition fee schedule for the fire district that significantly increased the fees the village collects for the agency from both residential and commercial developers. The board, however, chose not to impose the new fire district fees on the center until after the 18 month period. As a result, the Super Wal-Mart store will not be subject to the increased fees.
Prior to agreeing to freeze the fire district’s transition fees, developers and their attorneys told board members that budget calculations for the center made using the previous fire district fees.
Carrie Hansen, village administrator, noted the fire district would receive a total of $31,000 if the center were fully developed with 900,000 square feet of retail floor space under the fire district’s previous transition fee schedule versus $216,000 under the new fee schedule.
But board members determined it was too late in the negotiation process to impose the higher fees on the first stores that will be built in Prairie Market.
Noting the board was considering Prairie Market prior to the fire district fee hike proposal, Brad Rock, a board member said, ”The new fees haven’t even been passed yet. I don’t see how we can (impose them) in all fairness.”
“At what point does it become a hardship for the developers?” asked board member David Schlaker.
Property tax revenues not affected by agreement
Like the 500,000 square foot Oswego Commons shopping center at Route 34 and Douglas Road, Prairie Market is expected to become a major source of sales tax revenues for the village.
However, among the documents approved for Prairie Market by the board Monday evening was an inducement agreement that requires the village to rebate a total of $3,789,640 in sales tax revenues generated by the Super Wal-Mart store to cover the retailers cost for making public improvements resulting from the development of its store and the shopping center.
The public improvements include the extension of Fifth Street, and the installation of the two traffic signals on Route 34 and sanitary sewer lines to the site.
The inducement agreement calls for the village to rebate 40 percent of the sales tax revenues generated by the Super Wal-Mart to the retailer on an annual basis until the agreed upon $3,789,640 rebate total is reached.
During the time when the agreement will be in effect, the village will continue to receive 60 percent of the store’s sales tax revenues each year. When the agreement expires, the village would receive all of the sales tax revenues.
The Super Wal-Mart, which will have a full service supermarket, is projected to generate approximately $490,000 in sales tax revenues during its first year of operation. Based on that projection and the 60-40 sales tax split proposed in the inducement agreement, the village will receive $294,000 in sales tax revenues during the store’s first year of operation, while Wal-Mart would be rebated $198,000.
The inducement agreement will not apply to property tax revenues generated by the center and paid to the village and other local taxing districts. The village and all of those agencies will receive full property tax revenues generated by the center. |
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