Anthony Iatarola’s huge Hoffman Estates project chugs along

Add Hoffman Estates to the list of Chicago suburbs moving forward on massive developments of pristine vacant land held by generations of area families in the real estate business.

Officials in the northwest suburb approved construction of sewage and water facilities for Anthony Iatarola’s Plum Farms, the 185-acre development set to bring thousands of single and multifamily housing units, restaurants, a meditation facility, an ice rink, walking trails and green houses to vacant land at the intersection of Higgins Road and Route 59, the Daily Herald reported.

An annexation and development agreement was reached six years ago, granting permission to begin building utilities, but other steps needed to be prioritized, such as negotiating right-of-way easements with neighboring property owners.

It’s at least the third large land play to make progress recently in the Chicago area that would expand a small town’s housing stock by thousands of units while also adding other commercial uses nearby the new homes, such as office and retailers.

Last year, Rocky Wirtz, patriarch of the family that owns the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks and the longtime owner of hundreds of acres of undeveloped land further north in Mundelein, started working toward building on it. He annexed the first 740 acres of land with a plan to build about 3,000 new housing units among other buildings.

And in the far western suburb of Sugar Grove, Naperville-based Crown Development is reviving its efforts to develop about 700 acres it had previously tried to turn into a business park featuring warehousing, this time promising to build a variety of housing including apartments, townhomes and single-family homes as well as commercial components that could include retail, restaurants, community services, healthcare and e-commerce distribution or a data center.

Multiple Chicago-area real estate players are guiding the Plum Farms project in Hoffman Estates, including Iatarola’s 5a7, Berkadia, ARC Real Estate and CRG Residential. laratola’s father bought the land in 1959, and it has remained in the family ever since.

Now, the developers must apply for a separate building permit within a year of the village’s approval. Once attained, construction of sewage and water facilities is expected to be completed within two or three months.

The project has faced a series of other challenges since the initial proposal. The nearby Regency at the Woods of South Barrington retirement community filed a lawsuit in 2017, raising concerns about the density of the development. The case was dismissed in 2019 when a district judge ruled that the project had no adversary effect on the plaintiff.

Tax-increment financing was approved in 2020 to provide some funding for the endeavor, but there’s still no agreement on which costs the village would cover, Hoffman Estates director of development services Peter Gugliotta told the outlet.

Plans for Plum Farms call for a maximum of about 1,250 units, ranging from townhomes, apartment buildings, single-family dwellings, build-to-rent options and at least 155,000 square feet of retail and office space. It’s unclear when the project will be completed in its entirety.

— Quinn Donoghue