Allstate Seeks Rare Re-Annexation to Revive Industrial Deal

In 2025, Allstate successfully obtained a court order to disconnect a 67-acre parcel of land at Higgins and Bartlett roads from South Barrington. Now it wants to reconnect the land to the village ahead of a proposed sale to Opus for industrial redevelopment.

Allstate formally asked the South Barrington village to re-annex the land, which currently is considered to be in unincorporated Cook County territory, according to the Daily Herald. South Barrington’s plan commission has already recommended approval of Opus’s plan to construct three light industrial buildings. The annexation of the land and the proposed plans are two separate legal matters. Annexation doesn’t have a hard date to appear before the council, but the proposal is expected to be considered at a July 9 meeting, according to the outlet.

Allstate’s buildings on the property were razed in 2012, and the property was set to get a Texas-based Hillwood led makeover before plans for an industrial development fell through. Opus now has a contract to purchase the land, and wants their new complex inside village city limits. While no construction on the land appears imminent, the pace for Opus’s planned development is set to accelerate should the village council vote in approval.

Re-annexing the property would subject the project to village oversight, but also move it in alignment with the local planning priorities and unlock possible incentives. At the time, Village attorney James Vasselli called the re-annexation process a “unicorn” event, an unprecedented maneuver considering the de-annexation a little over a year ago.

The specifics for the proposed plan are unknown. Recently, villages around Chicagoland have been hostile to one specific industrial development type: data centers. Lake County agreed to pursue a temporary halt on all data center development in unincorporated areas after mass resident backlash. Just down the road in Hoffman Estates, a data center proposal for the former Plum Farms development site was dealt a setback when the village planning commission recommended a denial.

— Hunter Cooke