A Medical Clinic in the Borders Basement?

Well this is...anticlimactic.

For all of the speculation and surveys about what type of business could move into one of the area's most coveted pieces of commercial real estate, Wednesday Journal reports that a medical clinic wants to takeover the downstairs portion of the building that once housed Borders.

Related: Patch Borders coverage

Last year, the idea for an for the space at 1144 Lake St. A few months later, the results of a community feedback survey . But none of that has panned out.

Now, an unidentified medical business wants to take over the space's entire basement and a portion of the main floor, according to WJ. But first the property's landlords, Water Tower Realty, will ask village officials for a variance to "allow some portion of the main floor to be used as an entry to the clinic." Zoning rules in the downtown business district prohibit anything other than retail space 50 feet from any street line.

Pat Zubak, director of the Downtown Oak Park business group, said the group's board of directors always pushes to bring first-floor retail space in the area. But the building's prominent location at Harlem and Lake raises the stakes.

"It's the most important space as far as visibility and traffic," Zubak said. "The loss of Borders has impacted the other [nearby] retailers, so it's important to Downtown Oak Park that the space remains retail."

But is that the landlord's problem? The entire two-floor space has been vacant since July 2011. If the variance request is OK'd at a May 2 meeting, Water Tower Realty would be filling a huge chunk — an estimated 8,000 square feet of basement space — with a paying tenant.

We called Water Tower Realty for comment. A woman who answered the phone there said she'd call back, but that hasn't happened.