Is Fresh Farms Still Coming to Buffalo Grove?

When Buffalo Grove signed off on the last details of the Cambridge Commons improvement plans, its developer said the company was ready to begin construction.

“As soon as we get permits, we’re ready to get started there,” Nick Vittore said. 

That was mid-July. Since then, there’s been no noticeable activity on the site of the mostly vacated shopping center, which remains home to Little Caesar’s and Illinois Dental Center. 

Permits for the façade and demolition plans have been ready for pick-up at Village Hall since Sept. 19, Village Manager Dane Bragg said.

“We have been in communication with Svigos Asset Management since the permits were approved for publishing. I don’t have any indication if they plan to move forward with the project, or not,” Bragg wrote in an email to Patch.

Svigos Asset Management owns and manages the Cambridge Commons shopping center, which sits at the southeast corner of Dundee and Buffalo Grove roads.

Vittore, Svigos’s vice president who represented the project in Buffalo Grove, has not responded to phone calls from Patch or an email sent to his office.

The redevelopment was first proposed to the Buffalo Grove Village Board during the summer of 2012. Over the next year, village officials worked with Svigos to create an economic incentive agreement that would help fund the project and finalize exterior plans, including signage and the height of a new façade.

Vittore said then that his plan was to convert the shopping center from “somewhat of an eyesore” to a development similar to the Fresh Farms-anchored plaza at the southwest corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Dundee Road in Wheeling.

Trustees later approved an economic incentive plan that would return up to $1.1 million to Svigos.

That money was earmarked for façade improvements, Vittore said earlier this year. “We need to have a freshened up shopping center to attract new tenants,” he said. 

Vittore said over the summer that Fresh Farms had been secured as the anchor tenant. Fresh Farms did not respond Friday to a request for comment that Patch submitted through its website.

The anchor space was occupied by Rogan’s Shoes from 2005 until earlier this year, when the store relocated to the Strathmore Square shopping center. 

Before Rogan’s, the space held Dominick’s until 2001, when the grocery store moved across the street to The Plaza shopping center. That store, along with all other Chicago-area Dominick’s stores, is closing this month.

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