Lombard

Q. What signs of economic turnaround do you see in the communities your chamber serves? A. The opening of new businesses and restaurants.Q. Please identify one project that is an example of that turnaround. A. McDonald's will be building a new location in Lombard, and two other restaurants - Tom Eddie's opens in July and Tropical Smoothie Caf#233; just opened last month.Q. How optimistic are you that vacant storefronts and office buildings will be filled during this turnaround? A. Some vacancies will fill, but we believe that some of the landlords are asking prime dollar for property that is not in the best of shape, and would require a lot of work to upgrade and build out - because of this, we are certain that many will remain empty.Q. Do you agree that this will be a jobless recovery or are the suburbs more or less immune to that? A. We disagree. Once the residential market straightens out, it will create more jobs - particularly in the suburbs due to the home building that will go on.Q. What is your chamber doing to best position its membership for the economic rebound? A. We are focusing on maintaining our membership, and gaining new members by freezing our membership dues and increasing the membership benefits, especially those that we can offer at no charge.Q. What is your town's biggest economic development wish? A. We believe that it is a vacant parcel on Roosevelt Road that has a developer, but needs commitments from retail stores in order to proceed with construction. We are confident that we will see this proceed within the next year or so.Q. What is your community's single greatest asset or selling point to potential developers? A. Lombard is an evolving, vibrant and busy community. We have a prime location which has contributed to its growth.