In 2018, the owners of Ed’s Way Food Mart, father-and-son Ed and Mike Nutley, announced they were selling the building and retiring. Ed, who’s in his 80s, and his son, Mike, have run the neighborhood grocery store at 946 Beloit Avenue for more than 30 years.
But the beloved store will be closing.
The Nutleys put Ed’s Way on the market with Oak Park-based commercial real estate firm David King & Associates. Michael Leydervudor, a principal in 946 Beloit LLC, purchased the Ed’s Way property to turn it into a 10-unit townhome. The property’s change in ownership also comes with a change from commercial to residential zoning.
Ed’s Way is one of three buildings with commercial district zoning in around 40 square blocks of a residential district. It’s currently a B-1 property, zoned for neighborhood shopping in a commercial district.
In January, Leydervudor petitioned to Forest Park’s planning and zoning commission for a map amendment that would change the property to R-3, a high-density residential district.
The commission approved the plan last month and, in a council meeting Feb. 12, the council also approved the site plan to start construction on the 10-unit townhome. Jessica Voogd, commissioner of public property, was the only abstaining vote.
The change in zoning would set back the property’s front yard and affect how much of the lot is covered.
A B-1 property requires that the front yard is no less than 20 feet, or 15% of the depth of the lot. Currently, Beloit Avenue is considered the property’s front yard, as many developments on the block were built before modern zoning regulations. Other front yard, side yard and rear yard regulations are the same as those in the R-1 District.
But Forest Park residents aren’t so much concerned with the details of this rezoning as they are with losing an easily accessible grocery store.
“It is deeply disappointing that the Village did not push harder on the realtor to find a buyer interested in building a mixed-use property,” said Lindsay Baish-Flynn, a Forest Park resident who lives on Thomas Avenue, in an email to the Forest Park Review. “Ed’s Way served several critical functions in this community, including being a food resource to the aged, disabled, and school-aged children.”
Ed’s Way sits across the street from Field-Stevenson Intermediate Elementary School and Forest Park Middle School.
“The zoning commission, seemingly with little pushback or oversight, rubber stamped this for townhouses,” said James D’Amico, a Thomas Avenue resident who spoke at the Village Council meeting on Feb. 12. “There needs to be a little bit of dialogue and community input on what we’re actually looking for when a developer comes calling.”
Maria Maxham, Forest Park’s commissioner of accounts and finance, responded at the council meeting with a story about another development that tried to come to Forest Park a few years ago. The developer wanted to put in an apartment complex where Pines Restaurant used to sit.
“We followed the same procedure back then that we followed here for Ed’s way, which was putting up public notice, notifying residents and posting in the newspaper,” Maxham said. Residents were against the development and, when they requested multiple changes, the developer walked away.
“The process does work,” Maxham said. She added that someone interested in putting in another grocery store looked at the Ed’s Way property, but didn’t buy it. “If it was a good, marketable location for a grocery store, it would still be a grocery store,” she said. “To a large extent, the market is going to dictate what comes and goes out of the neighborhood.”
Steve Glinke, director of the Department of Public Health and Safety, said that Ed’s Way hasn’t set a closing date yet and estimated that construction will start on the townhomes in around two months. Ed Nutley declined to comment.
