Godzilla on Green Bay

Article from the Wilmette Life on the development of the old Ford dealership, good reviews here from former open space advocates:

Rosen said he and his wife, Rhea, circulated petitions years ago to protect Centennial Park from developers, but this time, they like the planned development.

Rhea Rosen said she and her husband like the idea so much, they might buy one of the 61 planned condominiums.

A member of the plan commission on the proposed 5-story building, nestled between 2-story buildings on either side:

Vern Voigt, one of the plan commissioners who'll have to make recommendations to village trustees on the project, said the height by itself doesn't worry him.

"We need people in the Village Center," he said. "As long as it blends in, I personally don't have a problem with it."

And from a village trustee, who apparently doesn't notice the privately-owned buildings housing longtime Wilmette small businesses on either side:

Trustee Alan Swanson said the project "seems like a good starting point, but I think we need a plan for the whole block, which would include usable public space."

Hey, why stop there?

Here's my quote:

The love-fest was abbreviated by a sprinkling of angst about the project.

"I think that the scale of a five-story building is not appropriate for downtown Wilmette," resident Ann Leary said. "It's huge, massive and dwarfs all the surrounding buildings, including Village Hall."

Previous post here. Post from another Wilmette blogger here and here.

No mention in the traffic study proffered at the open house of how this 61-unit building would affect Park, which parallels Green Bay on the other side of the block. Nor any mention of how it would affect the schools.

And will this set a precedent for the rest of the narrow commercial strip along Green Bay, which shares an alley with single-family homes? A Shadow Across the Alley.

Bambi meets Godzilla?