Schaumburg says yes to high-end apartment complex
By a 5-1 vote Tuesday, Schaumburg trustees finally approved the village's first new rental apartment complex in about 30 years after lingering questions threatened a tie vote two weeks ago.
Resolution of those questions for two trustees spared Mayor Al Larson the role of tiebreaker after his absence at the last meeting spurred a deferral of the vote.
But Trustees George Dunham and Jack Sullivan said they were able to get answers to the questions they had since then, which had initially led them to consider joining fellow Trustee Tom Dailly in voting against the 180-unit complex at 680 E. Algonquin Road.
Concerns about adequate parking were at the top of the list for Dunham and Sullivan, while for Dailly those were just one of three issues he said would have prevented him from ever voting for the project.
Dailly said he never agreed with the village's basic philosophy in seeking a developer to rezone the 6.5-acre site near the Motorola Solutions campus from a potential office building use to residential. He also felt a previously undeveloped piece of land didn't justify the number of zoning variations the developer was seeking.
Even members of the village's zoning board demanded several changes to developer UrbanStreet Group LLC's original 192-unit proposal to increase parking on the property to 1.5 spaces per unit before recommending the plan last month.
Dunham said the developer's compliance ultimately convinced him the project was proposed in good faith.
"These people have done everything we've asked them to do," Dunham said.
Sullivan said he'd needed further convincing that the 74 additional parking spaces the property shares on its deed with a neighboring office building would always be available.
"It's a rock-solid agreement," he concluded.
Bob Burk, managing partner of UrbanStreet Group, said he expects the first residents to begin moving in during the fourth quarter of 2016.
Monthly rents for the high-end complex are expected to range from about $1,000 to $3,000, and some residents will have garages tucked into the buildings' ground floors.