Limo dispatch center to move into Roselli’s site
by BRIAN NADIG
The former Roselli’s Restaurant, 6164 W. Higgins Ave., which closed 7 years ago, is being converted into a dispatch center for a limousine company.
In 2007 a 28-unit condominium complex was proposed for the 15,000-square-foot site and two neighboring properties, but opposition by residents halted the project. The project was scaled back to include only the restaurant site, but the smaller 16-unit development was never built.
The 2,500-square-foot restaurant was built in 1968, but it previously operated as a smaller carryout business elsewhere on the block and before that on Harlem Avenue. The restaurant was popular for its thin-crust pizza.
An application for a construction permit recently was filed to convert the restaurant building into offices and to perform electrical, mechanical and plumbing work.
About $300,000 worth of improvements to the building, including replacement of the building’s stone archways with windows, is planned, according to a representative of the Limo Corp of Chicago, 5509 N. Cumberland Ave. The company will be the lone occupant of the building, and not all drivers will report to the center at the start of their shifts, the Limo Corp official said.
The B3-1 zoning of the site allows the limousine dispatch center use but prohibits on-site repairs to commercial vehicles.
However, the future of another longtime restaurant site remains unclear. Noodles Restaurant, 5956 W. Higgins Ave., closed 6 years ago after a fire. Repairs were made to the building, but the restaurant has not reopened.
