‘Atmosphere’ vs. access: Lost parking has some businesses upset about al fresco dining area in Mount Prospect

Mount Prospect officials are lauding the new downtown al fresco dining area on Prospect Avenue as a success, saying it enhances the culinary experience for customers of the Lady Dahlia Tequila Bar and the Patina Wine Bar.

Other businesses on the block, however, are upset about the loss of nearby parking spaces on Prospect Avenue between Pine and Wille Streets — an area where spaces are at a premium.

Six spaces in the middle of the block have been converted into a dining space. Customers in the dining zone are protected by concrete barriers and feature planter boxes, umbrellas, and decorative lighting.

“I think it’s been highly successful,” Mount Prospect Village Manager Michael Cassady said. “We’ve heard firsthand from the owners of the two restaurants that they have enhanced their ability to service people outside.”

Cassady said the al fresco dining environment is “exactly the kind of atmosphere we’re trying to create in the downtown.”

Angela Cox-Bray of Des Plaines is one of the customers who said she enjoyed the outdoor dining experience.

“I love it,” she said. “It’s just really nice to enjoy the weather.”

But one of the neighboring business owners, Dave Esau of Dave’s Specialty Foods, compared the impact to “putting a roller coaster in your backyard.”

He said the village “just came and flipped everybody off and said, ‘Here is what we’re going to do,’” Esau said. “It’s a very limited parking area, and they decided it would be a grand idea to do this. Rather than discuss it, they just pushed it.”

“I feel like all this has been helpful for the new customers that they have brought in,” said Maggie Esau, who works with her father. “But the long-standing ones that have been coming here regularly to anyone (else) on the block are suffering more.”

Customers of these long-standing businesses have some alternatives. They can forage for parking down the street. They also can park across the street and walk to the end of the block or find an opening in the raised median separating the two sides of the street and cross there.

Esau said the situation is particularly inconvenient for older customers.

Maggie Esau said the business feeling the most impact is the Synergy Fitness Studio, which is sandwiched between Lady Dahlia and Patina. Synergy, which has customers receiving physical therapy, now has no parking in front of the business.

“It’s just one long wall,” Maggie Esau said. “It’s not like there is a break in between to get to Synergy from the street. You have to go around either side.”

Tina Cotsiopoulos, who owns Synergy, said she wants to “make things work for all of us.”

“When it comes down to it, we are in a neighborhood. These are my neighbors,” she said.

Cassady said the village will evaluate the program after it ends in October. In the meantime, he said the village has addressed parking concerns by striping more than 90 spots along Prospect Avenue west of Pine Street.

“The primary thing was to make sure that we have enough parking for all of the businesses along that section of Prospect Avenue,” Cassady said. “Our analysis shows there’s about 400 parking spaces available to all those businesses.”

However, he added, what businesses are objecting to is that the parking is not necessarily immediately adjacent to their business.

“And that is just something that probably we can’t overcome. But there is adequate parking,” he said.