Development of the proposed Sherman Plaza project will move forward now that a a longtime holdout agreed to sell his property to Evanston for an undisclosed amount.
Evanston resident Stuart Handler, who agreed to sell the property last week, had been in negotiations with Evanston for several weeks after the city moved to condemn Handler’s property on the block of Sherman Avenue between Church and Davis streets. A judge in real estate court recommended that both sides settle privately.
City Manager Roger Crum said both parties now have until July 15 to finalize the terms of the sale.
Meanwhile, Thomas J. Klutznick Co. has three moths to prepare and present a plan to Evanston City Council detailing the development.
Osco Drug, 1630 Sherman Ave., and Olive Mountain restaurant, 814 Church St., have already sold their properties to the developer, Thomas J. Klutznick Co. Handler’s property is the final acquisition.
The Sherman Plaza project, a proposed $100 million commercial and residential development, has been long and difficult in the making.
The city voted to condemn both Olive Mountain and Osco Drug, taking the effort as far as the Illinois General Assembly before both agreed to sell. A lawyer for the city said at the time that Handler was the greatest obstacle to the development.
The plaza will include 135,000 square feet of specialty retail space, a 1,400-space parking garage and a 200-unit retirement community.
Developer James Klutznick has been waiting for the city to settle its proceedings with Handler so that he can move on to finding financial backers for the project, attracting stores and negotiating leases.
Klutznick said it was too early to name businesses or figures and that the work he is doing now is “typical pre-development stuff.”
“Now that the assemblage is past us, we can begin to work on every other aspect of the project,” Klutznick said.
If Klutznick’s project gets a nod from the council, the city will then sell him land, Crum said.
“It’ll be a lot of work in three months,” Crum said.
Klutznick agreed that the hard work is just beginning, but he remained confident in the project’s future.
“There’s been a lot of hard work up until this point,” Klutznick said. “It just gets more intense at this point.”
Though the figures for the sale remain undisclosed, Crum has said the cost was greater than developers had anticipated.
Klutznick has said he would wait until all the land was acquired and the project assessed before making any predictions about the cost.
But Klutznick spoke positively about private interests in the project.
“We’ve talked to a lot of (businesses) that want to be in Evanston,” Klutznick said. “But the important thing is that we are moving forward.”
Crum said the presentation is a standard procedure and similar to what was required of the Arthur Hill & Co. before developing the Church Street Plaza.
The plan is necessary because the development includes a new parking garage for the city, Crum said.
“We need to understand all the terms because we are committing city funds,” Crum said.
