Jouzapaitis, Menas Bring New Homes to Top-Tier Kildeer Golf Course

Home building has begun along a championship golf course in Kildeer, signaling a development boom in the northwest Chicago suburb as new residents flock to the area.

Construction will start next month on a two-lot home in The Preserves of Kildeer at Kemper Lakes, a 61-lot custom-home community within the Kemper Lakes Golf Club, the Daily Herald reported.

Kemper Lakes owner Steve Jouzapaitis and developer Michael Menas are at the helm of the project, while Premier Realty Group handles marketing and sales. Lot sizes and prices vary greatly, as a 7,162-square-foot site was priced at nearly $1.2 million in the spring, and a 9,983-square-foot parcel was listed at $210,000.

Roughly half the lots have sold, Premier Realty Group president Jeff Ohm said. The Preserves of Kildeer at Kemper Lakes targets buyers looking to downsize. The community isn’t age restricted, but it’s most likely to appeal to the elderly. Home buyers aged between 65 and 74 make up one of the strongest target-market groups, according to real estate market analyst Erik Doersching.

The entire property is surrounded by the golf course, which has hosted major PGA and LPGA events. Kildeer resident Darren Wesley, who’s embarking on the two-lot home next month with his wife Rani, says the community offers “spectacular” views, while allowing him to combine his loves of living in Kildeer and golfing at Kemper Lakes, he told the outlet.

The pace of new home construction in the Chicago area as a whole remains sluggish compared to the years before the Great Recession, with between 4,000 and 5,000 new homes getting built annually, compared to about 25,000 before 2008, according to Erik Doersching of consultant Tracy Cross & Associates.

As many as 9,000 new homes could sell each year if there was more supply, but a lack of active construction companies and a patchwork of land-use plans among the 397 Chicago-area municipalities are hindering increased production, Doersching said.

Meanwhile, there’s already signs that the Kemper Lakes Golf Club and surrounding development is contributing to more investments in the suburb. Last year, New York-based Northeast Capital Group bought a nearly fully leased 1.1 million-square-foot multi-building office complex on the golf course sold for $190 million, which at the time marked the priciest office sale in Chicago’s suburbs since 2005.

The deal held that title until Dermody’s purchase of the 232-acre Allstate campus closed for $232 million so the buyer could tear down the office buildings and build a logistics center.

— Quinn Donoghue