Office building designed before recession to be built in Hoffman Estates

A rare example of a recession-stalled building project being resurrected virtually intact occurred in Hoffman Estates Monday when village board members approved a medical office building immediately north of Poplar Creek Bowl and Barrington Square Town Center.

Joe Caruso, president of Hoffman Estates-based Caruso Development Corp., which will be building the project, said this is his only approved design derailed by the economic downturn to bounce back with barely a tweak.

"It's unheard of," Caruso said. "It's fun to see it come through."

Architect Richard Gordon of Northbrook-based Interwork Architects Inc., who designed the 27,000-square-foot, one-story building at 2359 Hassell Road, said it's just as a rare a phenomenon for him.

Though the building was approved by the Hoffman Estates village board in 2006, that approval expired before tenants could be found due to the onset of recession.

But when Northwest Community Healthcare Associates approached Caruso about a specific type of building in a specific area, he realized he already had something that met both criteria.

Though the building was first designed with the possibility of multiple tenants, Northwest Community Healthcare Associates now plans to occupy the entirety.

With the consent of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, Caruso said he aims to get started on the building next week and have it ready to open by June 30, 2016.

The building's design is consistent with those of the Blackberry Falls office park to the northeast off Hassell Road, though it will be a stand-alone structure.

The space the building will occupy became available when the movie theater at Barrington Square Town Center was razed in 2001.

The plan calls for trees and other landscaping features to obscure the stark, sterile architecture on the west side of Poplar Creek Bowl, in similar fashion to what's already been done on its north side.

Though Hoffman Estates' zoning code calls for a building of this size to have 116 parking spaces of its own, village officials deemed the 111 spaces in the plan to be sufficient for its needs.