And then there were two.
Chicago-based Murphy Development and Frontier Development are duking it out for the chance to redevelop a former police station in St. Charles.
At a recent city council meeting, residents of the western Chicago suburb recently heard pitches from both developers on how they would transform the site at 1515 West Main Street, the Daily Herald reported.
Renderings of the proposals by Murphy Development (StCharlesIl.gov)
Murphy’s $60.5 million plan includes a five- to seven-story building with 141 apartments as well as a restaurant and retail space. The developer wouldn’t seek any taxpayer funds for the project.
Renderings of the proposals by Frontier Development (StCharlesIl.gov)
Frontier, which is partnering with The Prime Group and Architectural Wood Expressions, proposes a six-story building and parking garage with 107 residential units, four restaurants, a public plaza and a 164-room hotel. That project would cost $150 million and the developer would ask the city for up to $20 million in TIF funding.
At a special council meeting in July, aldermen reviewed four different proposals for the site before narrowing it down. Now, some St. Charles residents, and even one alderman, are questioning the transparency of that July meeting.
“I’ll challenge anybody up here to tell me that meeting was transparent,” Alderman Bryan Wirball said at the council meeting. “That meeting was changed from 7 p.m. to 5 p.m., the Zoom link was removed, public comments were removed from the agenda and nobody knew what was going on. There was nothing on the city’s website. So you can’t tell me the July 25 meeting was transparent.”
More than 400 people have signed a petition against Frontier’s plans to bring a hotel to the city. The petition, which was started by Eileen Kanute, relies on the familiar “not in my backyard yard” trope by arguing that the hotel proposal is too big for the riverfront area and would lead to traffic overwhelming the surrounding neighborhoods.
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