Straz looking forward to bringing Pete’s and Pride to Palos Heights

By Jeff Vorva

Pete’s and Pride.

In Palos Heights’ immediate future, good things will come in “P’s.”

Mayor Bob Straz gave his State of the City presentation Tuesday in the Orchard Room of the Recreation Center in an event hosted by the Palos Area Chamber of Commerce, and he was full of good news as the worst of the pandemic is seemingly over.

He thanks Palos Heights residents and businesses for being resilient during the hard times and among a variety of topics covered, he gave a few more specific details about two big businesses coming to town.

The former Dominick’s Finer Food site, shuttered since 2013, will house a Pete’s Fresh Market and the northeast corner of Harlem Avenue and Route 83 that has been vacant for quarter of a century will be the site of a Pride Stores gas station and convenience store.

The Dominick’s property lease had been bought out by Albertson’s, which owns Jewel-Osco. There is already a Jewel-Osco in the city so Albertson’s let the store remain vacant.

But Straz said the lease on the building, located at 6401 W. 127^th St., expired Monday and Pete’s is ready to roll.

“This is something that my staff and I have been working on for years,” he said. “I first met with the people from Pete’s eight years ago. Pete’s bought the whole shopping center and is remodeling a good portion of the shopping center and now people will be able to start working on the store itself.

“They think it will take 12 months so hopefully by end of the year or the early part of next year, we should have a Pete’s Market there.”

Pride could be open even sooner.

“They have about 16 or 17 stores located in the western suburbs,” Straz said. “It’s a great family operation. They run a fuel operation and their convenience store operation is quite frankly from what I’ve seen is second to none.

“They have individual restaurants within the convenience store so I’m looking forward to this being a super, first-class operation.”

The mayor believes this will result in a big jump in tax revenue for the city.

“One of the things that you have to realize is that the addition of those two stores is that both will be in our top 10 of sales tax in our town,” Straz said. “When I look at a list of the stores we have, Pete’s and Pride should go into the top 10, which is phenomenal.

“We get $1.6 million a year and that number will be close to $2 million, which is something unheard of in the City of Palos Heights. We’ve never had that.”