Elburn Station, other projects keep Shodeen busy

Shodeen Homes is embarking on a variety of new communities and new adventures to the west in Elburn, Maple Park, Campton Hills and Sycamore, as well as apartments in St. Charles and single-family and row homes to the north in the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, area.

Now that it is about to close out Mill Creek, a master-planned community of more than 2,000 houses in Geneva where work began in 1996, Shodeen is hitting the reset button.

The builder is even participating once again in the Cavalcade Tour of Homes this year, featuring scattered sites and organized by the Northern Illinois Home Builders Association, scheduled for Sept. 7-17.

"The market is really coming back," said Craig Shodeen, president. "It is nice to see the positive activity once again."

"We have noticed that today's buyers seem to want to move west and we are running out of buildable land in Geneva, so we have been purchasing land in other communities to the west, including 505 acres in Elburn for a mixed-use, planned-unit development that surrounds the recently constructed Metra train station."

Charming downtown Elburn features a public library, quaint shops, diners and restaurants and the village hosts various events such as a Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades, Christmas Stroll hosted by the chamber of commerce, and Elburn Days, a three-day festival in late August that features music, carnival games and food at Lions Park.

Additional shopping, restaurants, services and Northwestern Medicine Delnor Community Hospital are minutes from Elburn Station along Randall Road.

"The people of Elburn are very enthusiastic and excited about us building there," Shodeen said. "Our Elburn Station community will include single-family homes, townhomes, row homes, apartments and condominiums, as well as commercial and retail space. Shodeen is the only volume builder currently building in Elburn. We broke ground in mid-May and expect the project to take about 20 years to complete."

The community will be completed in phases with the first phase consisting of a collection of ranch and two-story homes ranging from 1,754 to 2,240 square feet with three or four bedrooms, two or 2½ baths, island kitchens open to great rooms or family rooms, flex rooms, master bedroom suites, basements, two-car garages and priced from the low $200,000s.

Pre-construction sales will begin in early July and models should be open by late fall.

Shodeen said it bears noting that Elburn Station carries the unique distinction of being an AT&T "fiber community" ideal for telecommuting with high-speed internet and the ability to use multiple devices simultaneously without impacting each other.

Other Shodeen communities now underway west of the Fox River include Merry Oaks, Heron Creek and Reston Ponds in Sycamore; Blackberry Creek in Elburn; Norton Lake in Campton Hills; and Squires Crossing in Maple Park.

"We focused on Mill Creek for so many years and now that it is almost complete, it is time for us to expand again," Shodeen said. "So we are moving beyond the Fox Valley and expanding our horizons because the Fox Valley is landlocked."

One way in which it is expanding horizons is by building apartments to meet the rising need for rental units in the Fox Valley. Shodeen Construction is building 186 apartments at 1 Washington Place in downtown Batavia and it has also begun Prairie Centre at the former St. Charles Mall site, on property that has sat vacant for 21 years.

Once complete, Prairie Centre will include 670 residential units on a 27-acre development, as well as up to 116,000 square feet of commercial space. The initial plans for the apartments feature 10 buildings consisting of three levels of living on top of underground parking.

Affordable senior apartments are also part of the plan, as are five mixed-use buildings with first-floor commercial space and underground parking.

"We are thrilled to work with the city of St. Charles on this project and breathe life into a site that has been vacant for over 20 years," said Dave Patzelt, president of Shodeen Construction. "We've worked with our architects and designers to create a picturesque, mixed-use community with landscaped courtyards, ponds and water features. When complete, Prairie Centre will be a thriving asset to the city and its residents."

Shodeen expects that Prairie Centre units will be available for rental by late 2018.

The Shodeen expansion also involves construction just over the border in the Lake Geneva-Williams Bay-Fontana area of Wisconsin.

"Our family always vacationed up there and we literally grew up there in the summers, so it was natural for us to think about building there. We are currently in our second phase of townhouses at The Rowhouses of Fontana near The Abbey (Resort) and we are building single-family homes, including several ranch models, on selected lots at the Barclay Club of Geneva National, at Prairie View in Williams Bay and at Pheasant Ridge, south of Fontana.

"It is a nice addition to our day-to-day efforts in Illinois. We primarily use local Wisconsin construction crews up there," he said.

Shodeen said he grew up in the family business, mowing lawns in junior high, learning carpentry when he was in high school and then working his way up through sales, estimating and so forth. He has been president of the company for the past 20 years. Other family members active in the homebuilding business include his father, Ken, CEO/founder, who is still active in coordinating financing and planning development; and his sister, Anna Harmon, director of marketing. Several others are active in other parts of the large, diverse commercial and residential development firm.

For more information, visit www.shodeenhomes.com.