Politics & Government

Special Meeting Monday on Groves at Corporate Reserve

St. Charles Planning and Development Committee to meet Monday, Nov. 5, after the City Council's Government Operations Committee meeting.

The Groves at Corporate Reserve will be the subject of a special meeting of the St. Charles Planning and Development Committee on Monday, Nov. 5, immediately after the City Council’s Government Operations Committee meeting, the city announced in a release Tuesday afternoon.

The Groves at Corporate Reserve originally was planned for discussion at the regular Planning and Development Committee meeting on Nov. 12.

The project was first proposed as multiple office buildings and parking garages on 17 acres of a 50-acre site north of West Main Street at Cardinal Drive, which is west o Randall Road. Corporate Reserves purchased the site in 2008 and proceeded with the first phase of the development, which stalled as the Great Recession locked its grip on the nation.

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The area is zoned office research space, but Schaumburg-based JCF Real Estate proposed last fall a dramatic revision of the project, with new plans for a $40 million luxury apartments complex featuring between 300 and 400 units in three- and four-story buildings on 17 acres of the property. The developers had hoped to break ground in April.

But the plan quickly ran into opposition. St. Charles Patch reported in November that residents and some aldermen were critical of the project’s density — that there were too many units packed too closely together in the area. The developers had revised the plan at this point to include 407 units in the project.

Find out what's happening in St. Charleswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Then, in July, St. Charles Patch reported the developer had scaled back the project to 331 units and made other concessions, but the changes failed to meet the city’s affordable housing requirements, offering instead to make a $50,000 contribution to the city’s Housing Trust Fund; but under the city’s ordinance, eliminating affordable housing from the project would have obligated the developer to pay $2.6 million, city officials said at that time.

Since then, talk of the project has slowed, although residents’ interest and concerns about it remains high.

Information about Monday’s meeting will be posted on the city’s website on Friday, Nov. 2, according to the city’s release.

For more information, contact Matthew O’Rourke, Community Development Department, at 630-377-4443.

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