Burr Ridge Mayor's Role In Lounge Plan Questioned

BURR RIDGE, IL — A businessman's proposal for a lounge is "completely and utterly lacking" in its parking plan at Burr Ridge's County Line Square, an attorney for a group of residents says.

The lawyer also cited a 2018 email from a Burr Ridge official that said the parking volume from the businessman's current restaurant, Capri Ristorante, "overwhelms" part of County Line Square on occasion.

Now, the politically connected businessman, Filippo Rovito, is proposing the Are We Live establishment in County Line Square. It was originally described as a nightclub, but Rovito's representatives said he has removed the music component from the business. The village's Plan Commission plans to hold its second hearing on the issue Monday night.

Over the weekend, Patch obtained attorney Neal Smith's memo against the Are We Live proposal. He is representing a group called the Committee to Keep Burr Ridge a Very Special Place. Mayor Gary Grasso, a lawyer who has twice represented Rovito with requests before the village's Plan Commission, recently pressed for more information about the committee's membership.

Under zoning rules, the Are We Live lounge would require 38 parking spaces, but only 10 would be provided, Smith said. Despite this, the lawyer said, Rovito has submitted no parking plan to the Plan Commission.

Instead, he said, it was suggested the commission cede its oversight role to village staff. Those employees, Smith noted, report to Grasso, who he said represented Rovito the last two times before the Plan Commission seeking exceptions to the parking rules.

"The Plan Commission should decline to go along with this 'trust me' approach," Smith said. "The approach has not worked in the past, and it does not work now. Scrutiny of the parking is especially important now given that — unlike past parking variance requests — the Petitioner this time gives the Plan Commission no information about its plans to park vehicles off-site, information about the designation or parking spaces for valet staging and no information about designation of employee parking spaces."

Smith also noted Rovito has presented as a solution his 2015 agreement with the Pace suburban bus agency, which gives Capri a 10-year license for "nonexclusive" use of a nearby parking lot. But noting questions about the agreement, Smith said it seemed like it was "an illusion all along."

Smith cited an October 2018 email from Evan Walter, then-assistant to the village administrator, to Plan Commission Chairman Greg Trzupek about a parking request from Rovito.

"Having Capri move their valet vehicles to the PACE lot on certain days will help, but parking will remain challenging when we consider how many businesses operate on that side of the property," said Walter, now the village administrator. "Capri's volume simply overwhelms part of the property on occasion."

Grasso became mayor seven months after Walter's email.

In his memo, Smith said the owner of County Line Square has been "perfectly happy to sit back and ignore the parking chaos at his property."

"And why shouldn't he? After all, the Village subsidizes his failure to provide adequate parking by doling out variance requests and thereby providing shopping center tenants the unique ability to ignore the law," Smith said. "This is a situation where the owner has decided, quite reasonably, that he will not invest in his property because no one is holding him to his legal obligations."

County Line Square owner Bob Garber, Grasso and Rovito did not immediately return messages for comment.

The mayor has had a number of ties to Rovito. A plate at Capri is named after the mayor — "Linguini a la Mayor Grasso." And Rovito gave $5,000 to Grasso's 2018 ill-fated campaign for attorney general. Grasso returned the money a month later after a TV station's questions about it. Grasso has declined to say why he gave back the money.

Grasso's son, Michael Grasso, owns BLU Valet, which provides valet service at Capri.

The mayor is not representing Rovito in the current matter.

After the Plan Commission provides a recommendation on the issue, the Village Board will take it up. It is unclear whether Grasso would hand the gavel to a trustee during the board's discussion and vote. Grasso can break ties.