A Road Ranger fueling station and convenience store was proposed for the corner of Higgins and Landmeier roads in Elk Grove Village, but the company and developer Mario Gullo couldn’t come to terms on an agreement.
Courtesy of Elk Grove Village
Elk Grove Village developer Mario Gullo’s deal for a Road Ranger fueling station, convenience store with three fast food restaurants, and video gambling has fallen through.
Now he has less than two months to put together a similar redevelopment at Higgins and Landmeier roads, or he forfeits the chance at promised tax increment financing district subsidies from the village.
Elk Grove Village board members Tuesday night agreed to give Gullo until Oct. 31 to secure a different gas station and convenience store provider “or such other use approved by the village,” according to an amendment to the original March 26 redevelopment agreement.
The village sold Gullo a vacant 2.4-acre property at 2300 E. Higgins Road so he could combine it with the old O’Hare West Plaza — a long-vacant retail strip — that he owns next door. That’s where he inked a deal with Road Ranger, the fourth-largest truck fueling company in the country, for a $10.7 million redevelopment calling for more than a dozen pumps, 80 parking spaces for cars and trucks, and a convenience store building with Wendy’s and Subway restaurants.
The empty O’Hare West Plaza strip center in Elk Grove Village — owned by developer Mario Gullo’s George Gullo Development Corp. — is being eyed for a truck fueling station. But an initial lease deal with Road Ranger fell through.
Christopher Placek/cplacek@dailyherald.com, March 2024
But Gullo and Road Ranger were unable to agree to terms and moved to terminate the project, village officials said Tuesday.
Village officials and Gullo will revise their original agreement to allow for a new development on the property; if that doesn’t happen by the end of October, Gullo will reconvey the 2300 Higgins property to the village, under terms of the amendment approved Tuesday.
The village will also cut him a check for $3.125 million — the amount he paid the municipality for the land.
Elk Grove Village bought this 2.3-acre property at 2300 E. Higgins Road in 2023 and knocked down an old 3-story office building that was there. Earlier this year, developer Mario Gullo purchased the property.
Christopher Placek/cplacek@dailyherald.com, March 2024
Gullo was due to receive up to $1.75 million in TIF assistance for the gas station project — money that comes from a special tax fund the village set up in 2014, in which property tax payments were frozen at set levels and incremental real estate taxes generated above that started going to the village instead of schools and other local governments.
Mayor Craig Johnson has said the village was willing to provide the financial assistance because of the annual sales tax revenues — an estimated $200,000 to $400,000 — the redevelopment could provide village coffers.
The village inked a separate redevelopment agreement with Gullo in which he paid $2 million for a 2-acre, village-owned property at 500-570 E. Higgins, where two speculative industrial buildings — each about 19,000 square feet — are still planned.
As part of that deal, the developer is due to receive $1.5 million in TIF money, $125,000 to bury utilities, and village support for a Cook County Class 6b property tax incentive.