Work starts on subdivision at former Mundelein apple orchard property
Nearly 10 years after closing, the former Quig's apple orchard property again is being worked on, but with a decidedly different purpose.
Heavy equipment has begun shaping the path for a new entry road to what will be known as Orchard Meadows, a 69-home subdivision northeast of Route 83 in Mundelein.
Naperville-based K. Hovnanian Homes is proceeding with the project. It also may have plans for an adjoining parcel fronting Route 83 on which a collection of shuttered old buildings has stood as a vacant reminder of what the orchard once meant to the area.
"It is weird when you think of all the Halloween events, the pumpkin days; the restaurant, obviously," said Pete Schubkegel, Mundelein's building director.
An official with K. Hovnanian not available for comment Friday. But information provided to the village shows the Orchard Meadows houses will range in size from 1,800 square feet to 3,150 square feet and in price from $275,000 to $400,000. The models are proposed to be the same as in the builder's Silverwood Glen subdivision in Winfield. The original subdivision plan called for cluster-type housing with eight culs-de-sac. The new version has one cul-de-sac and the neighborhood will be built in a more traditional fashion with continuous streets and blocks. K. Hovnanian intends to extend Courtland Avenue to Midlothian Road, providing a second subdivision entrance.
Generations of apple picking ended for good when Quig's closed after the 2005 season. The following year, village officials approved a single-family housing project for the 20-acre site with developer Polcon Construction Corporation. After the market changed and building requirements weren't met, the property went into foreclosure and the agreement was void.
The separately owned commercial portion, including a restaurant and bakery, operated until early 2007, but no plans have been presented for it.
K. Hovnanian, formerly Town & Country Homes, is a national builder well-known in the Chicago area with projects from Lake Forest to Sugar Grove. The company in 2013 acquired and completed the Tall Grass Ridge subdivision off Midlothian Road, just east of the former orchard.
"When they took it over and built the remaining units, they sold very quickly," said Amanda Orenchuk, the village's senior planner. That success apparently sparked the decision to proceed with plans for the former Quig's property, she added.
Jeff Ohm, managing partner of Orchard Development Group LLC, which owns the 2.25-acre commercial piece, said there is a contract with K. Hovnanian to buy that parcel and raze the fading old buildings to may way for six or seven more homes.
"I still to this day get calls - they'd like to open it as a restaurant, but I think it's more the heart talking," Ohm said. "The commercial market basically disappeared and the opportunity we saw, and the village may agree, is for a cohesive development," he added.
The property would have to be rezoned, but no applications for that have been received by the village.