On the shopping front, Plainfield is slated to have a new locale to hunt for sales and stock up on life’s necessities.

Woodman’s Food Market has submitted plans to construct a 240,000-square-foot store at the northeast corner of 119th Street and Route 59 in Plainfield.

The expected construction start date is later in 2024 or 2025.

Woodman’s also will have a fuel center that includes gas dispensers, a convenience store, a car wash and an oil change center.

The 36-acre site features seven outlets that are available for additional development.

Taking to social media recently, Plainfield Mayor John Argoudelis posted: “Do you know how hard it is for me to keep a secret? Finally, I can spill the beans on a great new retail addition to Plainfield! Staff and I have been working on this since last summer, and I commend staff’s hard work to reel this one in!”

Early on, Woodman’s had considered the location of the former Walmart on Route 59 in Plainfield that closed in March 2023.

The village tried to work with Woodman’s and Walmart officials that would have included several tax incentives to “bridge the gap,” but the price of that location still was too steep for Woodman’s.

In terms of the Walmart location, Argoudelis said, “Woodman’s would not have been able to have frontage for a gas station.”

The addition of Woodman’s on 119th Street and Route 59 comes after another proposal for the property did not pan out and the parcel sat empty for several years.

Multiple projects in the works

In 2016, plans were announced to develop the 119th Street and Route 59 property as The Shops at the Polo Club, which would have been constructed as a high-end main street village with 613,000 square feet of street-level retail, a 140,000-square-foot department store, 50,000 square feet of offices and restaurants.

The addition of Woodman’s at the corner of 119th and Route 59 follows the recent approval of a Pulte Homes development to the east on 119th Street.

Construction already is underway for a 400-unit Polo Club subdivision that will include 261 single-family homes, 136 townhouses, a park and two multi-use playing fields on 119th Street between Route 59 and Book Road.

This development was annexed to Naperville in March 2023; however, the children of the subdivision will attend Plainfield School District 202.

Previously, D.R. Horton, one of the largest homebuilders in the U.S., spent years proposing the development of that property without being able to win approval before the Naperville City Council in part because of concerns over the additional traffic along 119th Street.

Pulte Homes has agreed to fund the first phase of engineering on the road’s expansion.

A portion of Book Road north of 119th Street will be built with the Polo Club development to the northern subdivision limit, said Andy Hynes, deputy city engineer with the city of Naperville.

The remainder of the Book Road extension between 111th and 119th streets is planned to be constructed as a future Naperville project.

“Design engineering for that road segment is currently programmed in the Naperville capital improvement program for 2025, with construction in 2026,” Hyde said.

More sales tax revenue

Although residents may be most excited for a new shopping venue, Argoudelis also is looking ahead to the additional tax revenue for the village.

“That will reduce the tax burden on our residents,” he said. “Last year, for the first time ever, Plainfield had more revenue from sales tax than real estate taxes. We have turned the corner, and we won’t be a community so dependent on taxing our homes.”

In a step toward further reducing property tax reliance, village trustees in December voted to allow cannabis sales after Plainfield residents approved the measure in a referendum.

“There is a lot of thought that went into this,” Trustee Margie Bonuchi said at the meeting. “Looking at the topic, the tax money that would come into the village is a very important thing for us to provide a lot more services.”

The village is in the process of receiving applications for two dispensaries with the goal of one on the south side and one on the north side of town, Argoudelis said.

“Regardless of your viewpoints on whether it should be legal or not, it is legal,” he said. “Whether we have dispensaries or not, we aren’t going to change who uses it. Us not having dispensaries is only leaving tax dollars on the table and letting other villages and towns get those tax dollars.”

It is estimated that the two dispensaries would produce upward of $1 million in tax revenue.