After Riverside’s approval process took several months of meetings last summer, the Star Buds cannabis dispensary will no longer look to move from its location at the corner of Longcommon Road and Harlem Avenue to a new development at the corner of East Burlington Street and Harlem.
Riverside’s village board of trustees on Aug. 21 approved a termination agreement with Ja Re Enterprise LLC, ending the arrangement for Riverside to sell the village-owned parcels at 3320 S. Harlem Ave. and 363-369 E. Burlington St. for the development of the new Star Buds dispensary.
The agreement was included within the consent agenda for the meeting, meaning trustees did not discuss or consider it individually.
According to the village board agenda documents for the termination agreement, Star Buds decided not to move due to the opening of BLOC Dispensary, 7122 Ogden Ave. in Berwyn, in June less than a mile away from the proposed development’s location.
The village approved a sales agreement for the two properties with SB IL 2 LLC in September 2023. The closing date was originally scheduled for Jan. 22, 2024, but Riverside approved extensions for Star Buds, first to July 22, 2024, and then to Dec. 31, 2024.
In November 2024, the village board approved Star Buds assigning the contract to Ja Re, which, according to documents included with the assignment agreement in a memo to the board, seems to be operated by Ahmad Joudeh, a Star Buds partner.
Joudeh did not respond to an email from the Landmark requesting an interview. Star Buds representatives did not return a similar request submitted through the company’s online contact form.
Jessica Frances, Riverside’s village manager, told the Landmark Star Buds approached the village about a week or two before trustees approved the termination agreement to say the company wants to stay put at the 2704 Harlem Ave. location, which it had previously leased but now owns.
“It was in pretty short order that this wasn’t something that they could reasonably move forward with, given the location of it and given the research that they had done,” she said. “We’re happy to have them stay as a business, whether it would be in the new location or at their current location, but at that point in time, given all the data they had to make an informed decision, they felt it was in their best interest to not move forward with closing” on the new real estate.
Frances said Riverside will work with Williams Architects, the firm contracted for the village’s project to remodel its public safety facilities, to create a request for proposals to develop the site at the corner of Burlington Street and Harlem Avenue now that Star Buds’ plan will not come to fruition.
That plan included demolishing the existing structure on the west parcel to make way for a new parking lot and replacing the current parking lot on the east parcel with a new building, complete with glass LED paneling facing west and a drive-thru for online cannabis orders to be picked up.
Dispensaries cannot operate drive-thrus under Illinois law, though several bills that could change that have been introduced in the Illinois General Assembly over the past few years to little success.
Frances said Williams will provide renderings for potential developers to see what could be done on the site within four to six weeks; once the village board approves, the village will release the RFP. Final consensus on picking a new development will take place three to six months later, she said.
Having withdrawn from the sales agreement, Star Buds will consider making improvements to the existing location, Frances said, though she didn’t know exactly what. The addition of a drive-thru to that location would require a new zoning review process, she said.
Alison Costanzo, a resident and vocal opponent of the planned Star Buds development due to the influx of traffic she predicted it would bring to East Burlington Street, said she wasn’t surprised to hear the dispensary was no longer moving.
“There’s been no work on the site all summer long, and, considering how hard the village pushed to get all of their variances and all of that passed, for no work to be done — one of the neighbors and I were talking, and he was like, ‘It just seems really weird,’” she told the Landmark. “Maybe they realized what a bad spot that is.”
She said she felt disappointed by a perceived lack of transparency from the village over the development’s status and worried about the village’s past dedication toward a project that has now fallen through.
“It raises a lot more questions for me as a resident of, OK, now what? The village was doubling down [that] this is going to be an economic driver,” she said. “Of course, I want the community business district to succeed because that makes our community succeed, but the right way of doing that, you have to weigh and measure the considerations of residents and businesses and understand the difficulties of that street being one of the straight throughways.”
While Riverside did work with Star Buds to approve its development plans through meetings with the planning and zoning commission and the village board, Frances said the company was responsible for paying fees to cover the associated staff costs.
“Residents aren’t necessarily subsidizing someone’s specific zoning relief or zoning request. That cost is borne by the individual or business making that request,” she said.
No matter what goes in at the site, Costanzo said she still wished to see Riverside complete a traffic study on East Burlington Street, reiterating a desire she expressed when she spoke publicly at village meetings last year.
“It’s frustrating when, as a resident, you bring things to their attention, and things fall on deaf ears,” she said. “When there are legitimate questions, I don’t always feel like the village takes it seriously.”
