Developer pulls plug on Arlington 425 project plagued by delays and financing woes
Seven years after it was proposed, Arlington 425 — the three-building residential and commercial campus touted as the largest development in more than two decades in Arlington Heights — won’t get a shovel in the ground, village officials said Tuesday.
Developer Bruce Adreani of Norwood Builders recently informed village hall he’s ending his efforts to redevelop the long-vacant Block 425 property at Chestnut Avenue and Campbell Street in Arlington Heights’ downtown.
Adreani didn’t respond to requests for comment Tuesday evening, after village officials released a statement announcing the project wouldn’t proceed as planned.
“It’s a prime location,” Mayor Tom Hayes said in the statement. “It’s well-positioned for a successful development, and the village will continue to work with the property owner and any future development partners to bring a new vision to life that will further enhance our award-winning downtown.”
The ambitious redevelopment called for a 10-story, 234-unit apartment building with streetside retail at 225 W. Campbell St., a five-story parking garage on Highland Avenue, and a five-story, 85-unit building of apartments or condominiums along Chestnut Avenue.
But the project was long-plagued by delays and financing woes.
Adreani was facing an impending May 6 deadline to obtain three building permits and come back to the plan commission and village board for final plat of subdivision approval.
He last appeared before the mayor and village trustees during an at-times tense meeting on Oct. 21, 2024, when board members granted the project its third extension of zoning entitlements since scaled-back plans were approved in May 2021.
An initial 12-month extension was granted in April 2023, and a six-month extension a year later.
The first plan — at the time, estimated to cost $150 million, and with the tallest building standing 13 stories — was approved in May 2019.
Among reasons for the delays cited by Adreani were problems securing financing, the pandemic, building material costs and supply chain issues. Even the Bears’ possible move to town — and how the team’s Arlington Park redevelopment could affect the village’s downtown — had been cited by the developer.
The major stumbling block at the village meeting last fall were structural concerns with the proposed parking garage, since it would have been only four inches away from an existing public garage.
The empty parcel on the west side of the downtown was once home to Paddock Publications, owner of the Daily Herald. Adreani purchased the nearly 3-acre site in 2000.