Drive By: Santas Village 4/09

[FParker185]

I know the question pops up here now and then on what's happening with Santas Village. I used to work right down the street from the park, but since my job moved, I don't see it as often. Anyways, figured I'd be proactive and if anyone is curious, little has changed at SV. The park is starting to look really overgrown and the polar dome looks to be in pretty bad shape. Yellow and blue water slides are still standing. Of course no rides visible from the road, and just about everything there sold anyways.

Other than that, the walmart across the street is still there, it was supposed to closed, though it looks like they recently redid the exterior of the store, so perhaps that plan has changed. Also the dunkin doughnuts on the corner of 25 and 72 that kinda jutted into the park has been torn down and rebuilt with some extra retail space added on which is currently empty. Looks nice.

That's about it. Big old for sale sign still on their fence and "Available along with a phone number" is up on the parks road sign, at least what's left of it (2 back to back panels blew out about a year or so ago).

[Ilovthevu']

I see the problem being the fact that they have a big shopping area already, and it's not a great idea to build houses at this time. So, what would they put there??

I think the reason for it's downfall was that it was more costly than Kiddieland to get in, the fire truck hose on the ride didn't reach the house anymore, the Typhoon roller coaster, rundown parking lot, a lawsuit, and poor marketing. You also have the Santa thing going on, and maybe kids are learning faster about it now than they were before. These kids don't want to go because they know, and they feel they are too cool / old for that place now. For Kiddieland, those kids could range older than Santa's Village because there is no Santa.

I haven't been in that area for awhile now.

[FParker185]

That retail space down the street along with Meadowdale Shopping Center just alittle ways north on 25 are both pretty vacant. After Dominicks closed, there was a mass exodus. The entire area is being hit really hard right now. That land has been rezoned for retail/commercial. I dont think that spot will ever go residential, unless it's condo buildings or something. Generally once an amusement park occupies land, it wont be fit for residential for quite a while. Lots of stuff gets spilled, would take a massive cleanup of the entire site to build something like a subdivision.

[Ilovthevu']

Spring Hill Mall looks to still have a lot of stores in it. They have the bigger stores of Macy's, Sears, JcPenneys, Kohl's, and Carson's. I don't know what major store is gone, but that's what the mall directory says.

I was in a place today that had a lot of shopping area, and some of the businesses were gone. There used to be a Toys R Us there, a Boston Market there, a Long John Silvers there, a Patio place there, and so on, but what I got to thinking is that the particular area is so close to another area. Why does Wal-Mart need to have 2 stores within 5 miles of each other, or why do a lot of other stores have to do that? Really, what I feel is happening is that you can't have 5 million stores in each town. You usually have a town with not much, and that town feeds on the other built up town.

For, Gurnee there is a lot of stuff in this town, and than I went to the town to the right, and there didn't seem much stuff there. That doesn't make it a bad town, but that's usually what happens. When 2 towns want to be all mighty and powerful, one of them is going to go down (Stores are going to close quite a bit) because it's the same people in both places because it's only 5 or 8 miles away.

[Chitown]

^^^Wow, that Dunkin Donuts and Dominicks are gone? I have only been gone a couple years. I used to shop at that Walmart when I lived in Elgin, and thought that was the crappiest Walmart I have ever been in. After now being used to the Walmart Supercenters like in Waukegan and down here in Florida, that Walmart in Dundee is a DUMP!!!!

That area is turning into a sh''t hole and fast. Here is to hoping the Grand Bear Lodge will still try to re-create Santas Village. They already have SV santa down there during the holidays and they own the snowball ride.