Daily Herald Staff Writer

Should Buffalo Grove residents sacrifice some of their sales tax revenue, which is used to offset property taxes, so Dominick's can move to a better location?

That is one of the questions Buffalo Grove trustees will answer at a future meeting, when it decides whether to approve a new Dominick's in the Plaza at Buffalo Grove.

David Hene, Dominick's real estate representative, told the village board Monday that the store could be required to provide stormwater detention for the whole site by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District if Dominick's does not receive a waiver.

Hene said the store would be forced to build an underground basin, "because it is unacceptable to have standing water in the parking lot."

Dominick's wants the village to help defray construction costs of the stormwater detention system. This would be achieved through a sales tax sharing agreement.

Under the agreement discussed Monday, but not voted on by the board, Dominick's would receive a maximum reimbursement of $350,000 over 10 years.

The money would come from the village's local share of whatever sales taxes Dominick's generates beyond what it currently earns at its Cambridge Commons location.

Dominick's plans to move from its more than 30,000-square-foot facility at Cambridge Commons into a new space with more than 60,000 square feet at the Plaza.

As part of the redevelopment, a few existing businesses will be relocated to other spaces on the site.

Hene said the infrastructure agreement is an "absolutely critical" element of the project.

Two audience members, however, objected to Dominick's receiving any reimbursement from the village.

One of them, Buffalo Grove resident Rob Sherman, said he had looked at the Web site of Dominick's parent company, Safeway Inc., and found it had made a gross profit of about $9.5 billion in the year 2000.

"Here they want a community to donate to them," Sherman said. "If they want to put the project in and it needs water detention, (they) should take it out of (their) profits. It shouldn't come out of our tax dollars.

"Every single taxpayer in Buffalo Grove is going to be subsidizing Dominick's. They can afford to subsidize it themselves."

But Village President Elliott Hartstein said the village has an interest in economic development and that the improvements would revitalize an older mall development.

"The money would be generated from Dominick's," Hartstein said, adding that the village would only start sharing taxes if Dominick's generated greater tax dollars than they had previously, or as he put it, "that piece of the pie that is bigger than the existing pie.

"It would help pay for the infrastructure improvements, if we do not get the waiver. It's not intended as a subsidy for Dominick's. It would assist in the redevelopment of the center, provided the project moves forward and the waiver is not granted."