After 20 years of ownership and community outcry on a previous plan, a Naperville Developer is changing tack with its 760-acre site deep into Chicago’s western suburbs in Sugar Grove.
Crown Community Development released a new proposal for the site, which the company is calling the Grove. It would include retail, commercial and residential development, as well as a park and a town center.
The company has owned the site, located at the interchange of Interstate 99 and Route 47, since 2003, according to Crown’s COO Teri Frankiewicz.
The new proposal includes single-family homes, attached townhouses and apartments, as well as a 200-acre open space that will have parks and walking trails. Commercial components include retail, restaurants, community services, healthcare and e-commerce distribution or a data center.
The new plans will also include a town center, which the developer notes could be an “ideal location” for a future village hall. The project is part of a broader trend shaping suburbs across Chicagoland and nationally that has towns outside major cities creating individual downtown districts to accommodate their residents and mimic amenities of larger cities, such as walkable districts with ground-floor activation of buildings, bike lanes, and places where communities can gather and towns can host civic events.
Crown’s renewed focus on the land follows a proposal for another massive acreage in Mundelein by the Wirtz family that owns the Chicago Blackhawks. In that northern suburb, the family announced late last year that it’s starting to plan the 700-acre Ivanhoe Village that would turn farmland into a mix of single-family homes, multifamily apartment complexes and office and retail.
Frankiewicz noted that Sugar Grove doesn’t have a traditional downtown, and her firm’s project would give the community that type of space.
“We’re offering to create a town center with a large village green, to have and start creating that energy and activity, and we would have it be pedestrian friendly, walkable and bikeable, and become a focal point for Sugar Grove,” she said.
While the number of housing units and scope of the commercial real estate structures haven’t yet been shared by Crown, the focus on bringing housing to the site represents a major shift in the developer’s vision for the land.
Its reimagining comes four years after many residents objected to Crown’s last proposal — which included building a business park with manufacturing, warehouses and distribution to the interchange. Sugar Grove eventually voted to de-annex the land from the village at the developers request, halting the previous proposal’s progress.
This time around, though, Village President Jennifer Konen has prodded Crown to come back to the table and present a new plan for the space, she said at a February meeting, according to a WSPY radio station report.
“I know that you all are terrified,” Konen said. “I was terrified the first time this thing came through and it was a totally different concept plan. We’ve gone from a massive land plan of all industrial space. This is a working compromise — that’s what we have to get to, and how do we make the project flourish for all of us?”
The developer hasn’t yet conducted a fiscal impact assessment on the new proposal, but does have plans to eventually pursue a tax increment financing agreement on the project.
“After careful planning and listening to the residents of Sugar Grove, Crown Community Development is excited to share our new proposal for The Grove, which is very different from the plan submitted in 2019,” Frankiewicz said. “We are starting with a fresh slate and will begin community engagement meetings this spring.”
The project will include rental single-family homes and homes for purchase, townhomes, housing for adults over 55 and apartments. Incorporating a variety of housing was essential to the project, Frankiewicz said.
“One of the greatest challenges we face is creating opportunities for a lot of different housing types that meet different needs,” she said. “It’s pretty essential to have all different residential types in the mix.”
The project will be developed in phases over about a decade, and there is work with the city to complete before the project can begin, including getting the property re-annexed, getting officials to sign off on a new development agreement and getting approval for tax incentives.
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