Wholesale auto auction house wants Hoffman Estates land

Hoffman Estates' village board is expected to vote April 6 on a proposed wholesale auto auction house west of the Prairie Stone Business Park that could potentially sell about 75,000 cars per year and employ 150 full-time and 100 part-time workers.

Adesa Inc., based in Carmel, Ind., is seeking approval to start with a 65-acre property at the northwest corner of Beverly Road and Prairie Stone Parkway that it could expand through two further phases to 134 acres.

Brett Roland, senior vice president of real estate for the company, said the auction house is specifically for dealers and not the general public. Though vehicles would come and go every day, the on-site auctions themselves would be held one day a week.

Roland appeared before the Hoffman Estates village board Monday night to explain the business in more detail. He cited an example of his clientele as a Chevrolet dealership that receives a Ford as a trade-in which it then wants to pass along to a Ford dealership.

Village officials said there were initially many questions about environmental impacts when the proposal was first made, but staff members and the planning and zoning commission are now recommending its approval.

"There won't be any junk cars there," Roland said.

Unlike Adesa's sister company Insurance Auto Auctions that resells damaged vehicles at a site in nearby East Dundee, only operable vehicles will be sold from the Hoffman Estates site, he added.

Communities in the nearby Barrington area, which rely on well water, pay special attention to such land uses for the potential impact to the aquifer. South Barrington Village President Paula McCombie said that while a facility like that proposed in Hoffman Estates is probably less likely to be damaging to the aquifer than the East Dundee site, she intends to research it further.

If approved next month, the facility would likely take about a year to build and then sell only about 15,000 vehicles per year during its first two years, Roland said. The higher amount of 75,000 per year should be attainable in the years after that, he added.

Hoffman Estates plans to charge a $7 vehicle transfer tax for each sale, rebating $2 per vehicle back to Adesa to help cover the $7,500 per acre cost of connecting to sewers.