Balmoral owner withdraws rezoning

Instead, will ask Will County’s OK to continue parking trucks at site

The owner of the former Balmoral Park harness racing track near Crete has withdrawn a proposal to allow the site to be used as a trucking terminal, but plans to seek approval for the continued parking of trucks on the property, according to an attorney for the property owner.

Officials have, for now, approved the parking of dozens of trucks owned by Radomir Dobrasinovic, who bought the property in January 2021.

He had sought a rezoning change that would, in addition to storage of trucks, permit the maintenance and dispatching of vehicles at the nearly 200-acre property, 26435 S. Dixie Highway, in unincorporated Will County just outside of Crete.

Dobrasinovic has interests in trucking through MGR Express in Summit, as well as businesses involved in truck sales, leasing, financing and insurance, according to public records.

Officials in Crete and the township have recommended against the rezoning.

Richard Kavanagh, an attorney for the property owner, said Wednesday a letter was sent to Will County in mid-October withdrawing the rezoning application.

Kavanagh said the property owner will instead ask the county to renew a permit to allow the continued parking of trucks on the Balmoral property.

He said Crete’s objection would have required a supermajority vote by the Will County Board to approve the rezoning. He said obstacles also included officials in Crete Township opposing the trucking terminal plan.

“We can’t do the impossible,” Kavanagh said Wednesday.

The rezoning application had been on the agenda for Tuesday’s planning and zoning meeting in Will County, but Kavanagh said he expects the commission will instead consider renewing the special-use permit.

Kavanagh said the property owner now has a temporary use permit scheduled to expire in mid-November.

Although the property is in unincorporated Crete Township, it is within Crete’s planning boundaries, allowing the village to file an objection concerning any rezoning, he said.

Crete officials adopted a resolution opposing the rezoning Oct. 10.

At a Crete Township meeting in August, residents spoke against turning the former harness racing track into a truck terminal, but said they were not opposed to continued parking of trucks on the property.

At that meeting, Kiki Dobrasinovic, Radomir’s daughter, said the longer term plan is to have harness racing return to Balmoral.

Balmoral had been home to both harness and thoroughbred racing over the decades, but hosted its final harness races the day after Christmas in 2015 after track owners filed for bankruptcy.

For now, however, dozens of truck tractors and trailers are parked in a sprawling lot around the former Balmoral grandstand.

On a recent weekday, workers were installing opaque screening along a chain-link fence that surrounds the property. Kavanagh said the screening was a requirement by Will County for the initial temporary use permit allowing truck parking.

The attorney told the township’s plan commission that MGR Express has 500 trucks, and that many drivers have left the company and it has several trucks that are idle. Kavanagh said the company had run out of space to store trucks at its main location in Summit and uses the former harness track space.

Radomir Dobrasinovic paid $3.9 million for Balmoral Park and also bought the nearby Balmoral Woods Country Club for $1 million, records show.

After harness racing ended at Balmoral, the property was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2016 for $1.6 million by New York-based Horse Shows in the Sun, or HITS, which undertook an extensive renovation and conversion to host horse jumping events.

The first such events took place in 2017, then the property was put on the market in 2020 with an asking price of $4 million.

Although the idea of bringing back harness racing, along with on- and off-track betting, has been brought up, making that a reality would appear to be a long shot.

Balmoral would need to secure racing dates from state regulators for a revived track season, and a clause in the 2016 deed conveying Balmoral to HITS prohibits any type of gambling at the site, including casino games or harness racing, until 2026.