Developer outlines plan for revamped Buffalo Grove Town Center

Days after Kensington Development Partners was announced as the firm behind a proposed $100 million redevelopment of the Buffalo Grove Town Center, John Schoditsch, principal of the Oak Brook-based company, introduced himself to the village board Monday.

Schoditsch discussed his firm's plans for revamping the Town Center near Lake-Cook and McHenry roads, efforts which received a boost Monday when village trustees agreed Kensington could receive funding from a newly created tax increment financing district.

He said he and his two partners have been working together for about 15 years, developing roughly 60 projects and about 9 million square feet of mixed-use retail and retail in suburban Chicago and the Midwest. Recent projects include the Schaumburg Corners shopping center in Schaumburg and Mariano's stores in Lombard, Palatine, Lake Zurich, Naperville and elsewhere, according to the firm's website.

“We have always kind of targeted this intersection for redevelopment,” Schoditsch said of the Town Center project “If you're in the industry for a while and you see the existing conditions, with the unbelievable demographics of Buffalo Grove, the school district, the different retail corridors, traffic, It just lends itself to a very nice redevelopment.”

Kensington is proposing a mixed-use development featuring several restaurants and retail buildings, a 30,000 to 50,000-square-foot retail structure and a 4- to 5-story primarily residential building with a parking deck and commercial and office uses on the first floor.

The middle of the redeveloped Town Center would include a site for community gatherings and other special events and “allows the retail on the ground level and the residential to become more visible, more sustainable and easier to lease that space and just have greater success,” Schoditsch said.

It might be a year before work begins, and Kensington is working with existing Town Center businesses to keep them and make them part of the project, he added.

Deputy Village Manager Christopher Stilling noted that the proposed project is in just its preliminary phases. The next steps will include the village working with Kensington on a plan to present to the village board for referral to the planning and zoning commission, which will hold a public hearing.