Officials celebrate new Des Plaines Mariano's

A nearly three-year wait came to a celebratory end Monday when Des Plaines leaders joined Mariano's officials to celebrate the still-growing grocery store chain's newest location.

Mariano's President Don Rosanova and Mayor Matthew Bogusz did the honors at a ribbon-cutting ceremony that not only served as a premiere for the new store at Golf and Mount Prospect roads, but also helped provide dozens of bags of food for the Self Help Closet and Food Pantry in Des Plaines.

The store opens to the public at 6 a.m. Tuesday.

Monday's event was the culmination of a process that began in 2014, when developers approached the city about building a Mariano's on a vacant site that previously was home to a bus garage. The $24 million project that followed included tearing down the old Motor Coach Industries headquarters, cleaning up the site, improving the intersection of Golf and Mount Prospect roads, and building a 74,000-square-foot Mariano's store.

To help make all that happen, the city backed an incentive program for the developer that lowers the site's property taxes for 12 years, and agreed to rebate 50 percent of Mariano's sales taxes to the developers for the next 10 years, up to a total of $875,000.

The new Des Plaines store is the 41st in the Mariano's chain.