Business owner wants feedback for Mt.Prospect proposal

The owner of Ye Olde Town Inn in downtown Mount Prospect wants your opinion of his proposed seven-story residential/business complex for the site.

Tod O. Curtis has plans for Mount Prospect's "triangle" -- a proposed restaurant and entertainment district -- that vary from the village's plan for the area. In fact, the village has filed condemnation proceedings against Curtis' property at 18 W. Busse, village officials said.

Curtis' representatives will be peddling the plans around town in the coming weeks, said Richard Valentino, a spokesman for the Curtis plan. He declined to name the specific local groups that would be asked to give feedback.

"When the village sees what we have to offer, they are going to like it," Valentino said. "I don't see how they couldn't."

Called Gateway Centre of Mount Prospect and costing between $10 million and $15 million, the project would be a contemporary brick structure.

On the first floor, Ye Olde Town Inn Restaurant, Sports Emporium and Dance by Tamara Zach -- current occupants of the site -- would operate, while the second floor would be office condominiums.

Five floors of residential condominiums with secured rooftop parking for residents and guests would top off the project.

Curtis hopes to get the feedback before formally presenting the plan to the village as early as next month, Valentino said.

Curtis wants to be part of the village's plan to redefine the area bounded by Route 83, Busse Avenue, Wille Street and Northwest Highway, Valentino said.

He's owned the land where he's operated his downtown business for almost 40 years, so he want to be a part of its future, Valentino said.

Even though the village has its own ideas for the site, it would consider the plan as it does all others formally submitted, said William Cooney, Mount Prospect's director of community development.

In fact, in April the village looked at a Curtis plan for the property. The problem with that submission for a four-story building was that it included property next to Curtis' that he didn't own, Cooney said. That precluded the village from considering it, he said.