Jay Javors, a real estate investor with ties to the area, has purchased the vacant lot at 7209 Madison St., the northwest corner of Harlem and Madison which formerly housed a gas station and food mart.
The property changed hands on Dec. 11, 2012, according to property records from the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. Forest Park Holdings LLC, which lists Javors as its manager, bought the property for $1.15 million from a real estate trust.
On Dec. 20, 2012, Forest Park Holdings obtained a $900,000 mortgage from a Sacramento, Calif.-based private trust. The land sale and mortgage were recorded by the Cook County Recorder of Deeds on Jan. 8.
Javors, a Fenwick High School alumnus and Hinsdale resident, is president of a Chicago-based real estate development company called Midwest Property Group Ltd. The company has developed several sites for Walgreens, including the one at Madison Street and Oak Park Avenue in Oak Park, where the drug store maintained the building’s 1922 historic façade.
He was called “an exceptional developer” in 2010 by then-Oak Park Village Manager Tom Barwin, who praised Midwest Property Group for working closely with neighbors and a Madison Street development organization to preserve the building’s appearance and install several green features.
The corner parcel in Forest Park is 21,000 square feet, and has been vacant since 2009. As a former gas station site, the property had to have underground tanks removed as part of environmental remediation before it could be sold and redeveloped. It has been used as a parking lot by Rush-Oak Park Hospital and occasionally used by the village of Forest Park for parking during village events like the Holiday Walk.
Javors declined to comment about his plans for the property, saying, “I have nothing to say about that,” when contacted by the Review.
