With a liquor license in hand and building upgrades partially funded by tax increment financing district monies almost complete, a long-planned golf simulator venue is set to open at the end of the month in Arlington Heights.
Golf VX, which will have a dozen golf bays and restaurant/bar with a robotic bartender, will be in a 12,000-square-foot big box space at 644 E. Rand Road in the Southpoint Shopping Center.
It will be the first and flagship location for the Northbrook-based U.S. division of Kakao VX, a Korean indoor golf simulator company.
Formerly occupied by Laser Quest, the shopping center space is in the final stages of renovations, as crews were seen on site last week working on the exterior facade.
The developer, Northfield-based MJR Real Estate Holding Company, is getting up to $334,000 in TIF incentives for $2.1 million worth of upgrades to the Golf VX tenant space and neighboring 5,600-square-foot Dogtopia dog boarding facility.
That includes a roof replacement, new heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, facade upgrades and interior build out, according to the terms of a redevelopment agreement approved by the village board in September.
The village also awarded up to $92,000 in assistance for $142,000 worth of parking lot improvements, including repaving, new curbs, enhanced pedestrian access and landscaping.
It’s the latest financial commitment by the village to revitalize the aging shopping center along the Rand Road corridor. The board in 2020 awarded a different developer $1.3 million in TIF funds to bring At Home, a furniture and home decor big-box store, to town.
The money comes from the village’s fifth TIF district fund set up in 2005, when property taxes paid to local governments were frozen, and money collected above that level was diverted into the special fund for economic development purposes.
Last week, the village board awarded a liquor license to Golf VX, which will have its golf bays surrounding a centrally located robotic bartender called the Makr Shakr.
The device — which has two robotic arms that can craft cocktails from 158 bottles of spirits and juices hanging from a ceiling above the bar — won’t be in place until January, officials say.
Regardless, bartenders and servers will be the ones checking identification, inputting drink orders on a computer screen, then serving the finished product to customers, according to Gina Choi, Golf VX’s project manager.
Employees will be trained under the Illinois BASSET program to serve alcohol.
“I really want to ask if the robotic bartender is going to be BASSET certified,” quipped Trustee Robin LaBedz.
The latest approvals come nearly a year after trustees issued special-use permits for the large amusement facility and restaurant with food and liquor service.
When the venue opens, it will operate from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.