Truckomat in south holland Illinois

Dunno but I don't support the Iowa 80 ripoff joints......

 

Hi Guys,
Came here and joined from a Google Alert email.

I live in South Holland and am an Economic Development Commissioner.

The Truck-O-Mat in South Holland closed, probably a year or so ago.
The adjacent Chevy dealer closed in 2010 after GM's bankruptcy - and the attached body shop was bought out by another local shop that closed it.

And now for the good news...

The Truck-O-Mat, Chevy dealer, and warehouse (behind the Continental Pancake restaurant) have all been purchased by Love's Travel Stops.
They are due to start tearing down the buildings I believe in April, and a section is being given back to the village to develop a major chain restaurant.

Here is a rendering of what the Love's Travel Stop may look like:


Car parking and gas station in front, truck parking and gas station in the rear, separate ingress and egress for cars and trucks.
Convenience store and Hardee's restaurant for starters, probably will add another fast food store later on.

Hope this helps.

 

Nice to see you folks welcomed a business that will provide jobs and revenue to your area rather than get into a NIMBY fit.

Plus its a Hardees which will accept our points, unlike CrackDonalds.

 

....I go to Iowa 80 to pick out my stuff then order in online for 1/2 the price...

 

Now what about the old 76 truckstop across the street? That had more room.

 

Wass wonderin same thing--make more sense to build something on that lot

 

True, the old 76 truck stop property is bigger at 26.9 acres, but the total size of this new project for Loves is 17 acres, so it's not bad.

The old 76 truck stop property was originally purchased by Sony Loews who planned to build a theater.
They paved the parking lot, put the infrastructure in, and even began pouring the base of the concrete pad for the building.
....then they went bankrupt, and never finished.
So while they went through their bankruptcy, it sat dormant for years. Eventually the bank sold it.

The problem with that sale is that a church bought it.
(a very ill-advised church with lawyers and realtors that ran away with a lot of their money)
Obviously they couldn't afford it, and after more years of the property sitting dormant, they went bankrupt too.
The church lost this property, their main building, their parsonage (where the pastor lived) and all their other possessions in this bankruptcy.

Last fall, the property was auctioned, and the bank that held the mortgage for the church bought it.
There are currently three developers interested in developing the property, but I wouldn't expect anything to happen there for another couple years.

That being said, us Economic Development Commissioners have an idea of what would be cool there....

 

Love's has never been concerned with parking lot size, or having real restaurants

 

Thank you Octane for the informative reply. It will be good to have a truck stop on the East side near the city. The old truck-o-mat was kinda scary.