Developer acquires more property as it reshapes South Arlington Heights Road corridor
The developer behind the massive building that has sprung up at the gateway to Arlington Heights has acquired more property on South Arlington Heights Road as part of a vision to reshape the corridor.
Jeff Bernstein, principal of Chicago-based real estate firm Bradford Allen, confirmed Wednesday the acquisition of an eight-acre plot at Arlington Heights and Seegers roads, where an office complex was demolished in early 2024. The developer closed on the $3.35 million purchase of the former Arlington Executive Court office site in recent weeks.
Bradford Allen also has a four-acre vacant site on the northeast corner of Arlington Heights and Algonquin roads — where the former Yanni’s Greek Restaurant was torn down in 2016 — under contract.
Senior housing or market-rate apartments and townhouses are envisioned on the Seegers property, while the Yanni’s site could host retailers and restaurants, Bernstein said.
“What we’re hoping to be able to do is to create a complete town center development with retail and multifamily,” he said of the entire corridor. “The idea is to have the higher densities down by the highway and the lower densities as we go up.”
“This was screaming for redevelopment,” he added. “It’s the gateway to Arlington Heights.”
Bernstein provided the Daily Herald an update on planning and progress for his envisioned master planned community, which could take the better part of a decade to all come to fruition, during a brokers’ open house Wednesday, at the newspaper’s former building along the Jane Addams Tollway.
Bradford Allen paid $2.75 million for the five-story, 153,000-square-foot structure — an example of 1970s Brutalist architecture — in 2019, and has been renovating it for adaptive reuse as the ArlingtonMed medical office complex.
So far, a vignette office suite has been made on the second floor to show what a fully finished medical office would look like, but the developer is hoping to secure an anchor tenant and multiple other tenants before building out offices.
About 60 brokers representing potential medical tenants attended the event Wednesday. Bernstein said interest has been sparked by the recent topping off of the nearby eight-story, 301-unit apartment building under construction on the southeast corner of Arlington Heights and Algonquin roads.
To be named Arlo House — a play on “Arlington,” not the singer-songwriter Guthrie, Bernstein joked — the concrete block and masonry structure will offer a mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. There also will be first floor commercial space well-suited for a small market or fast casual restaurants, he said.
Marketing and preleasing for the apartments will begin when exterior construction is finished at the end of the year, and first tenants are expected to move in at the start of 2026.
“We spent the money for something that’s going to last,” Bernstein said of the $130 million project. “You can see it in the way it’s being built.”
Another phase of the project envisions a 10-story, 300-unit apartment building with retail — possibly a grocery store — on the Guitar Center site, which Bradford Allen purchased for $9 million a little more than a year ago.
Bernstein wants to relocate the popular music store somewhere in the new development, though noted the shop has about five years left on its lease.
The flurry of construction activity comes as Arlington Heights trustees this week approved contracts worth $4.5 million to replace some 2,800 linear feet of sanitary sewer line below Algonquin Road. Officials said the existing 18-inch sewer may not have the capacity to handle flow once the area is fully developed, so a new 24-inch line will be installed. Work is expected to begin within weeks and be complete in November.