LANSING | Despite a number of business closures in recent years, village officials are confident still-vacant shops will be filled soon.

And while the widening of the Kingery Expressway and the reconstruction of its Torrence Avenue overpass left a staggering impact on some local businesses, the door to improved economic conditions may have already opened.

Napleton Honda will soon open on Torrence Avenue and L.A. Fitness is poised to fill the former Dominick's building on Torrence, just north of the expressway.

"I think we'll recover," said Grace Bazylewski, Lansing's director of planning and development. "I think we're already recovering."

Lansing had lost some businesses due to a variety of factors. Some have re-opened as new businesses or under new names. Flowers by Josephine closed because the owner retired and Armando Vasquez Hair Design shut down over "personal financing."

Meanwhile, Bob Evans is slated to reopen as a new restaurant, Muse Café has reopened as Edible Arrangements and Sears Hardware was replaced by Goodwill Industries, Bazylewski said.

Trustee Nancy Eichhorn, owner of Dairy Queen in Lansing, said she and other businesses on Torrence lost up to 40 percent of their business during the Kingery project.

But conditions have improved so dramatically that business picked up 25 percent at Dairy Queen when the Illinois Department of Transportation finished its Torrence road work, Eichhorn said.

"I was thrilled to death," she said. "It's still down from two years ago, but I'm very, very happy with 25 percent."

Looking at a list of 10 businesses that have closed in the last few years, Bazylewski said at least four were casualties of the Kingery construction project.

Dominick's blamed its exit on the project, Bazylewski said, and Wright's Barnyard amusement park shut it doors because the state took so much of its property for the project that it became infeasible to continue operating.

"It's a tough nut to get people to survive something like a three-year project," she said.

Two closings -- Babies R Us and Office Max -- were corporate decisions.

IDOT spokesman Mike Claffey said widening the Kingery will provide economic and safety benefits to the south suburbs and Northwest Indiana. The Torrence overhaul will especially help Lansing, he said.

"The project is already providing a tremendous boom to the entire area," he said. "IDOT believes the economic future of the entire region is very bright now that we're wrapping up the project with less than a month to go."

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity offered low-interest loans to businesses affected by the Kingery project, said Andy Ross, a spokesman for the department.

The Participation Loan Program offered loans of $10,000 to $750,000 for small businesses with 500 or fewer employees, Ross said.

BREAKOUT

Businesses can find opportunities in Lansing

Lansing offers a variety of tax incentives to attract business, including tax increment financing, Class 8 and Class 6B tax status from Cook County and sales tax sharing, Lansing Village Trustee Anthony DeLaurentis said

"For example we gave (Napleton) a (sales) tax incentive," said DeLaurentis, the chairman of the Village Board's Economic Development Committee. "But that does not mean the next people are going to get the same kind of deal. As more businesses come, we won't have to keep luring people."

DeLaurentis said a developer has inquired about moving in to the former Toys R Us, but he declined to provide the company's name because the project is "just in the asking stages."