Fresh Farms Developer Applies for Buffalo Grove Permit After Deadline

Fresh Farms might still be coming to Buffalo Grove, if this week’s action by a development company is any indication.

Svigos Asset Management, which owns and manages Buffalo Grove’s Cambridge Commons shopping center, submitted and paid for a sign permit this week, a move made a day after its deadline.

Village officials approved in July a special request for a 7-foot-tall façade sign that will tout the Fresh Farms name. The permit was made available for pickup and payment in September. 

But although Svigos Vice President Nick Vittore said at the time that construction could get underway in the fall, the permit, which was required for the work to begin, was never picked up from Village Hall, leaving village officials wondering until recently whether the project would go forward.

The sign permit, which expired Wednesday, was picked up and paid for Thursday, Deputy Village Manager Jenny Maltas said.

“It is not unusual for us to give a property owner an extra day to apply for their permit due to the number of holidays that generally fall in between the time the special use is approved and the permit is issued. We have done this with other property owners in the past so it was not an exception for Svigos,” Maltas wrote in an email to Patch.

“They now have 180 days to complete the work before the permit itself expires,” Maltas wrote.

The company did not pick up its permit for a new ground sign this week, she added. That permit will expire Feb. 16.

Svigos officials have said that Fresh Farms will take over the shopping center’s anchor space, which was most recently occupied by Rogan’s Shoes. The shoe store relocated to the Strathmore Square shopping center in May.

Little Caesars Pizza has exited the Cambridge Commons shopping center in recent days. Signs in the front window announce that the restaurant is moving to 534-B W. Dundee Road, in the Lynn Plaza shopping center that is anchored by the Carnicerias Jimenez grocery store. It’s scheduled to open there Jan. 21, the signs read. 

Little Caesars’ departure leaves Illinois Dental Center as the only tenant in Cambridge Commons. 

Nick Vittore, Svigos’s vice president who represented the project in Buffalo Grove, did not return a phone call from Patch on Thursday regarding plans for the shopping center. 

Original redevelopment plans presented in 2012 called for the shopping center, which currently is configured for an anchor and eight smaller businesses, to consist of the grocery store and just two other tenants.

• Garden Fresh Pursues Buffalo Grove Dominick’s Location
• Is Fresh Farms Still Coming to Buffalo Grove?
• Cambridge Commons Redevelopment to Begin This Summer
• Cambridge Commons Developer Reduces Height, Proposes New Signage
• Village Officials: Proposed Shopping Center Entrance is Too Tall