Early childhood center's move portends progress for Schaumburg entertainment district
Bright Horizons Early Childhood & Education Center next week will celebrate its relocation from the shadow of Schaumburg's Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center to a newly renovated space on the Roosevelt University campus in the village.
The move not only begins a new chapter for Bright Horizons, but enables the start of preparations for an entertainment district on the site of the now vacant office complex where it had been the last tenant.
Late last year, village officials agreed to pay Bright Horizons $3.5 million to leave the Woodfield Green Executive Centre this spring, rather than remain to the end of its last potential lease extension in 2045.
The money Bright Horizons received for the move, as well as the $6.58 million the village paid for the 110,000-square-foot office complex in the first place, comes from a tax increment financing district set up to fund public improvements in a redevelopment area along Algonquin Road on both sides Meacham Road.
TIF districts set aside a share of the property taxes normally intended for local governments for up to 23 years to pay for improvements.
Next Thursday, the village's engineering and public works committee will review contracts for the demolition of the Woodfield Green Executive Centre this fall.
Schaumburg Economic Development Director Matt Frank said Orlando-based Andretti Indoor Karting & Games is expected to present its formal proposal to anchor the first phase of the entertainment district either late this year or in early 2023.
Other components of that first phase are anticipated to include another entertainment venue, a restaurant, and a 900-space parking deck with an elevated walkway connecting it to the Renaissance on property long reserved for a performing arts center.
Though the first phase would be west of the Renaissance, the demolition of the Woodfield Green Executive Centre to the north enables both a relocation of Thoreau Drive and future phases of the entertainment district.