Day care, urgent care clinic planned for former PNC Bank site in Wheaton

The Wheaton City Council will vote Monday to approve a redevelopment project that would replace a decades-old bank with a day care center and urgent care clinic at a heavily traveled intersection near downtown.

The former PNC Bank branch has been a constant at the southwest corner of Roosevelt and Naperville roads across from the Mariano’s grocery store.

An Oak Brook developer approached the city last year with a proposal to tear down the bank to make way for the urgent care clinic and a Guidepost Montessori School for preschool-aged children. Those plans met some objections from city officials worried about the traffic glut at the intersection and access to the new buildings.

But Quattro Development has since received tentative support from city planners and council members now that the firm intends to purchase the adjacent property to the west of the bank to expand the overall footprint of the project and alleviate initial concerns. The combined properties are nearly two acres in size.

“Essentially, we’re spreading everything out a little bit more,” said Brett Dahlman, Quattro’s director of construction and development.

In addition, the developer has revised the site plan to accommodate proposed traffic improvements at the intersection. DuPage County last August sent the city “preliminary conceptual plans” that call for road widening work and multiple right-of-way acquisitions of the corner property.

“Essentially, we’re spreading everything out a little bit more,” said Brett Dahlman, Quattro’s director of construction and development.

Listed under the county’s 2025 road program, the project would improve capacity, safety and mobility through the intersection, the developer’s transportation engineer wrote in a February letter to the city.

The developer has entered into a contract to buy the property occupied by an office building to the west of the drive-in bank. Both buildings would be demolished. A new access driveway would be constructed off Roosevelt Road about 70 feet west of the existing one.

“You have one less business operating on the two parcels,” said Phillip Coover, an attorney representing the developer. “And we also feel ... that there’d be no significant increase over the traffic from the prior use of the PNC Bank, especially during a time of operation in the early 2000s and 1990s.”

The proposed development consists of a 10,000-square-foot child care center with a fenced, outdoor playground. Situated on the northeast corner of the site, the second building would hold a 3,500-square-foot urgent care clinic for the “uninsured, underinsured and insured right along bus routes,” Coover said.

The hours of the Guidepost Montessori School would run from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“The drop-off hours are not like a typical school where the bell rings and everybody files in,” Dahlman said. “It’s spread out over a two- to three-hour period in the morning and a two- to three-hour period in the afternoon.”

Councilman Scott Weller approved of the changes. “Thanks for coming back to us with what I would say is an improved overall plan,” Weller told the developer at a public hearing this week.

“I think we have a much better result, so we appreciate your efforts,” Mayor Phil Suess said.

The council will meet at 7 p.m. Monday at city hall, 303 W Wesley St.