CHICAGO—Tucker Development, a fund manager and developer of shopping centers and mixed-use properties, recently signed a lease with Tesla Motors for eight super charging stations at Country Club Plaza in suburban Country Club Hills. Richard Tucker, the president and chief executive officer of the Highland Park, IL-based Tucker, tells GlobeSt.com that he expects such additions to shopping centers will become more common as electric cars like the Tesla, and green technology in general, become more popular.
“All retailing is about bringing your customers to the stores and keeping them there as long as you can,” he says, and such charging stations, still relatively rare in the region, will make the plaza an attraction for the increasing number of drivers that have gone electric. “It definitely brings some incremental increase in business to the center.”
“It's not a great money maker for us,” Tucker adds, since Tesla only pays a modest rent for the space, which sits on some excess parking spaces at the 450,000-square-foot center. “It's a service that we have brought to our customers. People right now don't have a lot of opportunities to use electric cars.”
The charging stations enable Model S electric vehicle drivers to travel for about three hours on a single charge. Drivers can connect their cars to the station while shopping at the center and be back on the road in 20 minutes. The service is provided free of charge.
One of the reasons Tesla chose this particular center was its location at the intersection of Rte. 57, I-80 and I-294. The company hopes to establish a network of charging stations throughout the US, making it possible for car owners to travel long distances without worrying about finding places to charge.
As reported in GlobeSt.com, Tucker Development recently decided to refocus attention on the Chicago region after several years of developing mixed-use properties in New Jersey. In addition to continuing its work in New Jersey, the company has about five mixed-use projects in the Chicago region in various stages of planning. “As we continue to explore new opportunities for mixed-use development in the Chicago and New Jersey markets,” Tucker says, “sustainable initiatives are a central focus of our development strategy.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
