Cary seeking developers to transform Maplewood site
Cary is looking for developers to transform the Maplewood property after a yearslong battle over the land with Cary Elementary School District 26.
The school district agreed to sell its Maplewood property to the village for $5.5 million and develop a new transportation site at another location last month. The intergovernmental agreement spells out that the village will buy the property — home of the long-shuttered Maplewood School — for $5.5 million upfront, and the district will use the revenue to buy a new property for its long-planned transportation center.
The agreement came after the village rejected District 26′s attempts to rezone Maplewood to allow for a new transportation center.
The village issued a public proposal request last week with a deadline of Nov. 19. The 15.6-acre property, located at 422 W. Krenz Ave., is in the downtown tax increment financing district that was created last year. Currently zoned for single-home residential, it houses the former school, six baseball fields and District 26′s transportation center.
“The development of this site will be an important part of the continuing improvement and expansion of the village’s downtown,” the village states in the request document.
The Maplewood property is identified as a “priority development opportunity site,” according to the 2021 downtown strategic plan. Village officials hope to create a “transit-supportive” mixed-use development of housing, open space and connections to the Metra station and downtown. Officials are open to multifamily buildings, townhouses or “small lot” single-family homes, according to the document.
The village aims to present concept plans from short-listed developers to the board at a meeting in January and start negotiations with the chosen developer by Jan. 14, according to village documents.
The village has had hopes of spurring development on the site for years, but has never been successful with finding a developer. Previous developers have proposed townhouses or apartments, but all ultimately stepped away.
Development also will affect Cary-Grove Youth Baseball and Softball, which has been using Maplewood as its primary location for over 50 years. The village asks developers to consider creating a park or open spaces for public use in their plans, according to village documents.
Officials also are moving forward with the Maplewood Access Road Extension project that aims to improve mobility in downtown Cary. The new road would be an extension of Industrial Drive, running from Cary Algonquin Road to High Road, parallel with Route 14 and south of the railroad tracks.