North Cook News

At the Feb. 7 meeting of the Mount Prospect village board, officials were presented with a development proposal for the property located at 915 East Rand Rd.

Raising Canes, a fast-food chain, wants to open a location in town.

The proposal included a request for special allowances, including a conditional use for dual drive-thru lanes and a variation for the parking lot setback. 

"I understand that there’s going to be some significant improvements made to that entire intersection, which would increase the traffic flow," trustee Michael Zadel said. "I’m very much supportive of that project. I have been ever since it was introduced, it’s something that goes back to the 1970s."

Zadel said he would like to see an overlay of the intersection improvements before voting on the restaurant proposal.

"I don’t know that I could support this unless I could see an overlay of the intersection as it’s proposed to be approved, with the traffic flow," Zadel said. "It’s just something that I would need in order to feel more comfortable with this arrangement."

Ann Choi, Mount Prospect’s development planner, presented the case to the board, sharing that the old building would be demolished and replaced with a brand new building. She also explained that the surrounding area including Rand, Mount Prospect Road and Central Road were planned for a separate redevelopment project that included additional turn lanes and intersection improvements with traffic lights. This project is expected to begin in the spring, with most work done in the following months and the final stages completed by spring of 2024, which is before the restaurant is slated to open, so traffic impact would be minimized before then.

The project would close four of the six open drives to the property, keeping one off of Rand as a right-in-right-out only drive and the Albert Street drive would also have prohibited exit turns to improve traffic flow. She also explained in depth the process of the drive-thru and use of pavement in the restaurant. 

Board members were unsure of the driveway access points for the restaurant, specifically the difficulties in exiting the restaurant. The right-only out on Rand and left-only out on Albert seemed to create a very difficult and dangerous traffic situation for drivers who want to head the other directions as they would have to exit and immediately cross three lanes of traffic to be able to make a turn to head back in their desired direction.

Trustee Richard Rogers called the area the second worst intersection in the village already. The village board will address this issue again at the end of February and make a decision on granting the exceptions then.