Lake Co. to bid on 256 acres of Pritzker land
The Lake County Forest Preserve District will be among the bidders today for a prime parcel in Waukegan it hopes will become a major link in a regional trail system.
Executive Director Tom Hahn will be at the Hyatt Deerfield hotel when a total of 600 acres owned by the Pritzker family go up for auction.
In an unusual move, forest district commissioners at a special meeting Thursday voted 18-0 to authorize Hahn to bid on 256 acres west of the Tri-State Tollway, with frontage on Hanlon and O'Plaine roads.
The minimum bid for the property is $4 million, with 10 percent of the high bid amount due as earnest money within one business day. The auction, held by Sheldon Good & Co., will follow an open outcry format in which bidders can continuously raise the stakes.
The resolution authorizing the forest district action did not specify a maximum bid limit.
Two parcels totaling 344 acres in Warren Township to the north are being combined in a separate package at auction, with a minimum bid of $8 million.
Together, the parcels are among the last large tracts in the tollway corridor. They have been owned for decades by the Pritzker family and are considered part of a series of asset sales to divide the family fortune.
Forest district commissioners began receiving calls from constituents almost immediately after the announcement in February that the land would be auctioned.
It is regarded as having significant ecological resources in a portion of the county experiencing rapid residential growth. Its location east of the district's centerpiece Independence Grove Forest Preserve could unlock the long dormant Middlefork Greenway plan, identified as a wish-list item in 1989.
"It's a key location. Opportunities to purchase land in the city of Waukegan don't come up at all," board President Bonnie Thomson Carter said..
Securing the piece could provide space for a trail system to connect with a proposed Libertyville Township bike path to the Des Plaines River trail and Independence Grove.
Development on the piece the forest preserve district wants already is limited to five homes and accompanying structures as a result of a conservation easement secured in 1987 by Libertyville Township.
The easement restricts development but not a trail, said township Supervisor Betty-Ann Moore. She said the township would work with the district.
She added she has received many calls from area residents wondering what will happen with the parcels.
"It's something we've been tracking for awhile and are very interested in," she said.