DUNNING — Starbucks no longer plans to open a drive-through cafe at Irving Park Road and Cumberland Avenue, Ald. Nicholas Sposato (36th) said Wednesday.
"It is a real bummer for the community," Sposato said. "I don't know what happened."
There are only three other Starbucks on the Far Northwest Side — in Old Irving Park, Edgebrook and Sauganash. Another cafe is proposed for the Six Corners Shopping District in Portage Park.
City officials had already given the green light to a three-tenant strip mall on vacant land that had been choked with weeds for years. Starbucks was supposed to anchor the development, the alderman said.
Irving Park Road and Cumberland Avenue is an "awesome" corner with unrelenting traffic that would be perfect for a quick-service cafe, said Sposato, who won election in February as the alderman of the 38th Ward.
Many people use Irving Park Road and Cumberland Avenue as alternate routes to the typically gridlocked Kennedy Expressway.
The northeast corner, which once was home to a gas station, has been an eyesore for eight years, Sposato said.
"We'll start over," Sposato said. "I've been reaching out to other, similar-type businesses."
Ald. Tim Cullerton (38th), who will retire next month, introduced a measure Wednesday to the Chicago City Council to restrict the property's zoning to prevent an undesirable development from being built without the community's input, he said.
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