New Palatine Masonic Lodge location approved

Despite concerns over parking and an encroaching neighboring driveway, Palatine officials approved the Palatine Masonic Lodge’s proposal to take over the vacant Dundee Road fire station.

The village council Monday unanimously granted a special use allowing for a social organization in a residentially zoned area, as well as a variation that lets the Masons have fewer parking spots than typically required under village code.

The Masons will move into the shuttered fire station at 456 E. Dundee and rent the building from the village, which forced the fraternal organization to move from its longtime building at 1 N. Plum Grove Road to make way for the Palatine Road improvement project, in its final stages.

The village paid the Masons about $600,000 to move from the building, which leader Lou Sands said had been occupied by the group for 107 years.

“We’ve been around a long time and plan on staying around for a long time,” Sands said.

The Palatine Fire Department closed Station No. 81 last month after moving into its new $2.9 million facility at 1215 N. Quentin Road, which officials identified as an ideal location to improve emergency response times to the northwest corner of the village.

The department is celebrating the new station’s grand opening with tours and refreshments at an open house at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Only one resident brought up concerns with the new Masonic Lodge.

There’s been confusion in the past over the exact position of the eastern property line, and it was discovered that the neighboring home’s driveway encroaches onto village land. The homeowner’s attorney asked for a long-term agreement stating the Masons would allow the driveway.

But Sands said it’s difficult to say whether the Masons will need that land in the future, prompting Village Manager Reid Ottesen to offer to facilitate a meeting between both parties about the driveway.