Finish the condos
Looking out from Brewfest at Festival Park last week, it was unsettling to see that a lot of the houses at River Park Place are still vacant. Interior construction appeared to be finished in all of them, so it looked like they were unsold units. The housing market is not in a good state apparently. The Herald reported the other day that Kane County foreclosures are up 38% over last year.
Earlier this year, Tom Sandor asked the city to follow up on the question of why River Park Place condo construction wasn’t underway. According to the city manager, the developers said they would break ground in April. It’s clear that that hasn’t happened yet. What a lot of us must be wondering at this point is whether it’s ever going to happen.
The implications of a housing slowdown are significant. For reasons I don’t understand, the city allowed Fountain Square condos to be completed in two phases, rather than a single-phase project. Now it’s unclear if the second half of that building will ever get completed. We may end up with an unsightly half-building.
That scenario is tragically more likely if River Park Place condo actually gets built, because all developers will be keeping an eye on how many units are built in the downtown and respond accordingly. If the River Park Place guys think that Fountain Square is flooding the market with downtown condos, they certainly will not build on spec. At this point, it’s almost like an either/or. You’re either going to get the other half of Fountain Square condo built or you get River Park Place condo built. This is if you leave things to unfold on their own.
I don’t see the city being aggressive enough in getting these buildings completed, and I think we’re at the point where they need to be more proactive. They need to make sure that phase 2 of Fountain Square begins immediately and that they break ground on River Park Place. Until these two things happen, it seems to me that it would be unwise for there to be any further consideration of Water Street or any other condo projects.
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First of all, the unsold River Park Place townhomes are NOT finished inside; the exterior is done BUT once a unit is sold, the buyer can choose the options they want to finish the interior. Second, new home sales have plummeted everywhere and NOT just in downtown Elgin. Why don’t you call the Villas of Cambridge in Streamwood, for example, and ask them how many units they’ve sold over the past year.
Overall, the award winning River Park Place townhome project has been very successful and in today’s slow market, it’s just going to take time to sell all of them.
Instead of holding a beer in one hand and pointing fingers with your other, why don’t you try to remain positive about downtown Elgin’s progress and appreciate what has happened so far. If you can’t, then why don’t you write up a proposal about how Elgin should approach its downtown planning and present it at the next city council meeting.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your comment. Yeah it would be a interesting idea for me to use the public comment period at city council meetings. I’ll think about that.
As for real estate, the only question I’m asking here is at what point are we going to move from having faith that the market will turn around to being proactive, and making sure that these buildings get completed regardless of the market?
Remember Elgin’s Condo Era?
That was the time when Elgin’s so-called downtown, pursuant to the “master plan” of the day, was going to be “revitalized” into some 24-hour lively residential environment populated by sophisticates living in new residences costing roughly twice the average Elgin home price.
Memories of that lost era returned recently with PNC Bank’s suit against the developers of downtown’s River Park Place. The developers allegedly aren’t paying back their loans, and the bank wants its money.
You may all recall that River Park Place was the development that destroyed the Crocker and initiated the nasty eminent domain battle to eliminate the coin shop dealer who stood in the way of progress. In addition to eliminating a rare downtown business not being subsidized by the City, those activities cost the City about $1.4 million, and you can see the resulting empty lots today.
Four years ago RS was demanding that someone “finish the condos.” I don’t criticize him for making that call, but we can all be thankful that nothing happened. The condos never would have sold. Even empty lots are better than more empty downtown buildings or - even worse as in many communities - the concrete shells of partial construction. Of course, the developers hardly helped the project when they tried to raise the condo prices by some 40 percent on those few people who had committed to the project.
Remarkably, the City of Elgin’s Spin Machine, ever loyal to Ed Schock’s “optimism,” continues to paint River Park Place as a “wonderful success.” Those are the exact words on the City’s current website where it announces “River Park Place has been a wonderful success with average sale prices around $400K and being near soldout.” I’m sure this would be news to PNC Bank.
The City, however, probably doesn’t update this old website propaganda because we all know the big parade has moved on. Elgin’s revitaliztion racket has moved on from the Condo Era to the Age of Art, Culture and Sustainablity. Instead of populating Elgin’s downtown with affluent empty-nesters we will pay more City money to fill it with some “artists” who are too poor and unsuccessful to support themselves but will still be very hip. Oh, and we’re all going to be sustainable, too. We’ll have a “beautiful and memorable city” with “heritage buildings and places, and arts and cultural amenities” in a “prosperous” and “healthy, safe, attractive” environment. The new “Sustainability Action Plan” tells us so, and would Dave and Sandy Kaptain and their precious greenie cult lie?
Art, Culture, Sustainablity. Those are the new revitalization flavors of the month. But in view of the demographic realities hinted at in the Census and apparent around us everyday, do these plans have any more likelihood of success than those of the Condo Era. Think about that when we listen to the candidates in Elgin’s election spinning their personal fantasies for the city.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
FORECLOSURES ARE WONDERFUL SUCCESSES
Orwell would find endless inspiration in Elgin.
Kafka would do well here, too.
Perhaps the Elginite should open a discussion on the great authors who would be most appropriate to present the Elgin of Diversity and Sustainability.
Margaret Mitchell of “Gone With the Wind” fame should certainly feel comfortable in NENA Elgin - an area overseen by affluent, articulate, well-educated white elites living in their beautiful “house walk” mansions and surrounded by neighborhoods of dependent, non-white poverty and squalor. Put Anna Moeller in a red dress and have her play Scarlett. But somehow John G. Dalton doesn’t quite fit my view of Rhett. Maybe in Rich Jacobs’eyes, not mine.
And then there’s Graham Greene who had a sharp eye for portraying deteriorating white people in Third World environments.
But to do complete justice to modern Elgin and its toxic combination of smarmy predators and dreamy-eyed wrist-flappers we’d need to call on the unique services of Evelyn Waugh. You need real acid to cut an honest portrait of Elgin today.
But alas, none of these writers wrote in a language understood by most of Elgin’s residents, so maybe we’d just have to rely on Cervantes. So who would be the Don? Mr. Schock or Mr. Kaptain? John G. Dalton? Certainly the role of the ass-riding Sancho Panza would have to go to Michael Noland. There’s something about asses that just immediately calls Mr. Noland to mind.
Slanderous much? Seriously - not commenting on agreeing or disagreeing for your opinion - but can certainly NOT approve of your choice to express RM’s ‘anon’ opinion at the expense of making this site liable for hate/slanderous speech. tsk, tsk.