THE LANDMARK VIEW
We’re not sure it’s indicative of any trend, but it’s nice to see movement in terms of commercial development in North Riverside again.
Plans for a new CVS drug store at the corner of Cermak and Harlem continue apace, and there appears to be some indication, according to village officials, that the proposed car wash just to the west of CVS is again moving forward after being in limbo for a time. Further west on Cermak, a popular restaurant/bar is proposing to expand its footprint.
Meanwhile, on 26th Street there are now plans to completely overhaul a grocery store property that is now home to a bargain food outlet. If anything like what’s being proposed is built at the corner of Keystone and 26th, it would be a major upgrade in both looks and use.
That’s all good news.
On the flipside, the tale of the bursting real estate bubble continues to be told elsewhere on Cermak Road. A foreclosure action against a strip mall at Cermak and First Avenue will probably not have much of an impact on how that property operates or looks. Since that shopping center is functioning, that’s OK.
However, at Cermak and Desplaines, it’s a different story.
A 2005 plan to convert the former North Riverside Garage property in to a strip mall never really got off the ground. While the building itself got a new façade, the rest of the property is a blighted blot on the landscape.
Piles of construction debris, including a big concrete drainage structure, litter the site. And the building itself isn’t even secure. While the property is fenced off, the east side of the building is completely open to the elements and, quite frankly, affords easy access to the inside.
Now that the bank is in possession of the property, the village needs to demand that this property conforms to the building code and that the site is cleaned up. There’s no excuse for this property to continue to be the eyesore it’s been for more than a year.
What was the hold up?
It’s not clear exactly why it took so long for her sister and Brookfield police to learn that Barbara Leahy, missing for 16 days beginning April 13, was at a Chicago hospital.
Confidentiality laws have kept a lid on exactly what hospital officials knew or did. Leahy’s sister did finally get a letter from the hospital where police took her sister. Why she got it nine days after the letter was dated is unclear, however.
Simple timing coincidences could have played a role. The hospital says Leahy was admitted on April 13. Brookfield police weren’t notified about her absence until the next day, so Chicago police didn’t have much info to go on.
But Leahy apparently did have some ID on her. And if they couldn’t reach her sister by phone, at least someone could have called Brookfield police, whose phones work just fine.
All’s well that ends well, we guess, but it shouldn’t have taken so long to get to the final act.
