New pressure in St. John to demolish old Kmart building

The demolition of several buildings on the east side of U.S. Route 41 near West 96th Place is expected to begin soon to make way for the Shops 96 commercial development.

St. John officials are hoping it could lead to demolition of the long-vacant Kmart building across the street.

The Kmart, unoccupied since 2012, is owned by Garden Properties in New Jersey. In 2017, Town Manager Steve Kil said the company had no plan to sell the building and that their representatives said it is against their policy and business plan.

At the March 18 Town Council meeting, Council President Mark Barenie said the principal of Garden Properties, Mark Hoffman, seems for the first time to be optimistic about doing something with the building.

“We’ve been talking to him for many years,” Barenie said.

The town has made Hoffman aware that a demolition contractor will be just across the street and have encouraged Hoffman to contact them.

“If there is inkling to tear down the building, now would be a great time to do it,” Kil said.

Kil said it is obviously the council’s desire for the building to be torn down and start a new development with a clean slate.

“That position has been transmitted to Hoffman,” Kil said. “We’ve supplied him with everything we can and encouraged him to contact the demolition contractor in hopes that perhaps he would engage their services. They could probably do it a lot cheaper for him now, they are on site. They would just have to move their equipment across the street. So mobilization costs would be less, things of that nature.”

Garden Properties has been known to demolish its old Kmart buildings, but only after pressure had been put on them.

Just last year a Kmart it owned in Lake Zurich, Ill., that had been vacant for 16 years was bulldozed, officials said.

This came after the village moved forward with a court order to force Garden Properties to do it.

“We had to put the pressure on them,” said Kyle Kordell, assistant to the village manager. “The vacant building had property maintenance violations. It became a public safety hazard.”

Kordell said Garden Properties finally cooperated and worked well with the village to tear it down.

Hoffman did not return calls for comment.