A former industrial site near Great Lakes Naval Station may finally be redeveloped into an entertainment district, with a museum dedicated to the area's military history as its foundation. The National Museum for the American Sailor Foundation revealed plans for a $40M museum near Sheridan Road and Martin Luther King Drive in North Chicago.

The village is donating 31 acres for the museum and a separate entertainment and hospitality redevelopment. The museum foundation just received state and federal nonprofit status, and started its fundraising. Developers for the entertainment district are courting hotels, retailers and other businesses for the rest, the Daily Herald reports.

The museum's executive director, Ronald Lanz, is North Chicago's former economic development director, and has much riding on getting this project off the ground. Lanz has been instrumental in organizing the development team and believes the museum's connections to Great Lakes, where 38,000 Navy recruits go through two months of boot camp annually, was never properly leveraged to benefit the village. Lanz expect the museum to attract 400,000 visitors a year. [DH]