After demolishing a shopping center now down to Carson Pirie Scott & Co. as the lone tenant, Shaw Development would begin selling individual parcels to prospective owners, then building the elements of Fountain Square at Waukegan. Likely buyers, company president Dennis J. Stine says, could include restaurants, hotels, banks and office builders.

While putting up $20 million in equity, Shaw Development Co.'s SDC Waukegan Venture LLC is seeking a tax increment financing package worth $30 million. In addition, the city is offering to buy the southernmost 32 acres of the site for $5.5 million for a use yet to be determined. Single-family homes is one possibility for the land, which Chicago-based REIT AMLI Residential Properties Trust had eyed for multifamily rental development, which the city nixed.

The Lake County Assessor's office pegs the market value of Lakehurst Shopping Center at less than $18 million, but 91% of that value is in the land.