Developer wants to replace Hoffman Estates office buildings with apartments

Hoffman Estates village board members will grant a courtesy review Monday to a developer planning to convert four single-story office buildings into four-story apartment buildings in an area of the village identified as ripe for redevelopment.

Officials from The Jade Group, based at Bell Works Chicagoland in the village, are seeking to change the 7,500-square-foot buildings at 2354 to 2360 Hassell Road into 112 apartments while still retaining the same four footprints on the nearly 3-acre site.

Each building would have a mixture of one-, two- and three-bedroom units.

While elected officials have yet to express their opinions of the proposal, village staff members said the basic idea ties into existing plans to encourage mixed-use development in that area, southeast of the new Pace bus terminal at the Barrington Road and I-90 interchange.

“This is a good example of one of those properties that are underperforming,” Director of Development Services Peter Gugliotta said of the office buildings that were developed in the early 1980s. “There is definitely a demand for multifamily (housing) in our area.”

During the same Planning, Building and Zoning Committee meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, village board members also are expected to further discuss a proposed tax-increment financing district for the area, a week before its scheduled approval.

There currently are no residential properties within the proposed 124-acre district, which would encompass an area east of Pembroke Avenue, north of Higgins Road and west of the East Branch of Poplar Creek. It includes property between the creek and Hassell Road.

Nevertheless, the desire for what's often referred to as transit-oriented development can include an increase in higher density residential development.

Though the property is within the proposed TIF district, it's not yet clear what expenses the village board will deem appropriate for revenue generated by the district, Gugliotta said.

A TIF district works by freezing the amount of property taxes local governments receive from it at the level of the first year. As the property value rises, the incremental increase in its taxes goes to a village-held fund to pay for public improvements within the district. The TIF district expires after 23 years or when all its expenses have been paid off, whichever comes first.

The village anticipates the costs for the implementation and public improvements in this TIF district to be about $30 million.