For two decades, Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson maintained a gentlemen’s agreement with the owner of the gentlemen’s club Heavenly Bodies: remove the village’s name from radio commercials, and the club wouldn’t be annexed into town.
“They kept running the commercials: ‘Heavenly Bodies, Heavenly Bodies, Elk Grove Village, Elk Grove Village.’ They weren’t in Elk Grove Village,” the longtime mayor said Wednesday. However, the dynamic has shifted. The long-standing strip club on the southwest corner of Higgins and Elmhurst roads will soon be annexed into the village, and Johnson will obtain the keys to the front door.
This week, village board members approved a $6.15 million purchase of five separate parcels totaling 2.77 acres at the corner. This acquisition includes Heavenly Bodies, a closed Burger King restaurant, a Marathon gas station, and parking lots. Despite some playful banter among the village board on Tuesday night, Johnson and village officials clarified they won’t be operating the club. Heavenly Bodies, which opened in 1989, is expected to have its final performance shortly before the June 17 closing on the sale.
“No, the village will not be running Heavenly Bodies,” Johnson stated. “After we close, then it will be closing down also.”
The club’s owner, Michael Wellek, who passed away just weeks ago, had been negotiating with village officials for months about the potential purchase of the prime corner real estate in unincorporated Elk Grove Township. The deal was finalized this week with a management corporation and trust controlled by his widow.
Elk Grove Village has been actively purchasing and redeveloping properties in the area to take a proactive role in shaping its future. “Now with the full Elmhurst interchange, that corner is the first main corner after you get off [the Jane Addams Tollway],” Johnson said. “That can and will become a prominent corner when you’re coming into the village.”
Johnson mentioned there are no immediate plans for the property beyond demolishing the existing buildings. The village board will formally vote on ordinances annexing the strip club into the village; the old Burger King and gas station are already within village limits.
Had the village forcibly annexed Heavenly Bodies earlier, the club would have been grandfathered into the municipal zoning code and allowed to continue operating. Johnson preferred the verbal agreement, which worked well for him and Wellek. Besides changing the infamous radio ads, Johnson secured access for police and fire departments to the property and improved landscaping around the building.
“We butted heads a little bit,” Johnson said about his initial interactions with Wellek. But after negotiating an agreement, “I’ve had a good working relationship with him for 20 years,” Johnson said. “We’re very appreciative that he was willing — and now his wife was willing — to work with us.”
Wellek’s relationship with the federal government was less amicable. In 2003, investigators discovered $12 million in cash stashed in bags at a warehouse behind Heavenly Bodies. Federal prosecutors alleged it was unreported income from the Elk Grove business and two other strip clubs Wellek operated in Harvey and Markham.
