Vacant Wheeling office building to become apartments

A proposal to convert a vacant Wheeling office building into housing and retail space was formally approved by the village board Monday night.

With affirmative votes on three aspects of the project, the panel greenlit entrepreneur Boris Stratiesvsky’s redevelopment plans for the three-story building at 350 E. Dundee Road. The new venture will be called Forest View.

The structure is near the northeast corner of Dundee Road and Milwaukee Avenue. The nearly 74,000-square-foot structure formerly was occupied by Solex College — a private, for-profit institution that closed years ago — and Cole Taylor Bank.

Friendship Park and its large, photogenic fountain are on village-owned property at the corner of Dundee and Milwaukee, just to the west of the 7-acre Forest View property. They won't be affected by the redevelopment.

The Forest View project has been in the works since 2022, and it was publicly unveiled to the board nearly a year ago.

More than 20,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space is planned, according to village documents.

The second floor, third floor and a new fourth floor will contain apartments — 55 in all. Studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units are proposed.

New parking areas, landscaping, sidewalks, and outdoor eating areas are envisioned, too, documents indicate.

The board on Monday agreed to rezone the property to allow commercial and residential development. It also granted a preliminary special-use permit for the proposed development and approved a new subdivision of the three lots that comprise the property. Final approval of the plans for that permit will be needed before construction begins.

Several trustees asked questions and shared opinions about the proposal before the votes. Trustee Ray Lang sounded especially pleased with the plan.

“I’m looking forward to you guys bringing this building back to life,” Lang told Stratiesvsky and his team. “It will look a lot better than what we’re seeing now.”