Eddie Juling Ni pictures patrons of a property he wants to redevelop in Chicago’s northwest suburbs hustling through a ninja-themed obstacle course then winding down over sushi, Chinese food, ramen or Korean barbecue.
The developer behind Aurora-based Windfall Group is proposing to buy a long-vacant former Sam’s Club property in Rolling Meadows spanning 129,000 square feet for $4.5 million, and pouring another $10.1 million into repositioning it as a retail and entertainment center hosting Asian-centric restaurants and businesses, the Daily Herald reported.
Ni has his eye on the former store at 1460-1470 Golf Road that shut down in 2010 after a decade as a Sam’s. He wants to incorporate a trampoline park with the ninja-style obstacle course, a golf simulator, laser tag and food hall.
If he pulls off the transformation, the project would be similar to Ni’s Pacifica Square in Aurora, a property Ni bought in 2018 and turned into another, 362,000-square-foot Asian lifestyle center to the tune of $100 million in development costs across multiple phases of work, according to published reports.
Ni’s firm is negotiating to buy the property from a company associated with Toronto-based Timbercreek Capital.
Plans for the Rolling Meadows property also call for an arcade and a total of at least 10 restaurants and a bar. The golf simulator would take up about 30,000 square feet, while an Asian supermarket would occupy 46,000. Some of the restaurant tenants will include a Mango Mango dessert shop, KyuRamen Japanese restaurant, Lao Sze Chuan traditional Sichuan restaurant and a yet-to-be-determined hot pot Korean barbecue restaurant.
Earlier this month, Rolling Meadows officials supported Ni’s application for a Cook County 7b tax incentive, which would let the property face lower tax assessments over 12 years as a result of the property getting declared blighted by the suburban government.
Ni’s attorneys said the 7b incentive is necessary for the purchase to go through and that the redevelopment plan wouldn’t be likely to move forward without it.
If the designation is granted, the project could be completed by the end of next year or early 2024.
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— Victoria Pruitt