JOLIET, IL-Arthur G. Cohen, based in New York City, has invested in a $50 million retail turnaround project here. The company has joined with Ardmin Properties in resurrecting Tower Marketplace, now known as Joliet Crossings, a mixed-use development.

Ardmin, based in Woodridge, IL, had planned to build 350,000 square feet of retail and 40,000 square feet of medical office here on farmland at the northwest corner of Route 59 and Theodore Street, on the city’s north border with Plainfield, IL. The first tenant, LA Fitness, moved into 45,000 square feet, but the economic downturn put the property into receivership, says James Schutter with Newmark Knight Frank. His firm was recently hired to market the property.

“When everything went south in 2008, the timing was terrible, it killed the project. The market Is just now starting to pick up, and we’ve seen significant interest. Retailers are starting to look around again,” Schutter says.

Cohen was able to get the construction loan restructured for $15 million, and has pushed forward, in partnership with Ardmin, to find tenants for the site. Schutter tells GlobeSt.com that the companies want to find a 50,000-square-foot grocery store anchor, and possibly a theater.

Brad Zackson with Cohen tells GlobeSt.com that the site’s location is what attracted his firm. There’s almost 160,000 people in a five-mile radius, and the site is just north of the Route 59 retail corridor and across from a proposed Lowe’s. “It’s just a great piece of real estate,” Zackson says. “Here you can build the future of the retail center, with a gym, a green grocery, movie theater, restaurants and a medical center, all the fabric of a community,” he says.