Warrenville attracts developer for ‘catalyst’ project in city’s Old Town

In the core of Warrenville, an old gas station was seen as an eyesore before the city stepped in and acquired the corner property.

The city has since demolished the gas station canopy and convenience store, cleaned up contamination to residential standards, made streetscape improvements and primed the land for redevelopment.

Those efforts are bearing fruit: West suburban developer Denver Capital has proposed a mix of residential and commercial space at the northeast corner of Batavia and Warrenville roads.

“This is a, the word maybe overused, catalyst project that’ll hopefully help shape the Old Town area, which is actually where I grew up,” Mayor Andy Johnson said.

Denver Capital envisions a three-story development wrapping around the corner with apartments on top of ground-floor commercial space. It would also incorporate outdoor dining and gathering areas.

“The community’s desire for a downtown Warrenville will be realized with spaces for new businesses to grow and prosper,” Community and Economic Development Director Amy Emery told the city council earlier this year.

The city purchased the former gas station property in 2020. It had closed in 2016.

The city took the first major step in preparing the site for redevelopment by removing underground fuel storage tanks and gas pumping equipment from the property, according to a project page. The city completed cleanup to residential standards, an FAQ notes, and the city received a “no further remediation” determination from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

“If the city had not done what the city did to remediate the underground storage tank issues and to clean up the brownfield site and to work with the IEPA and all the other entities that were involved to clean this up, to bring it to its current state, we wouldn't have any development going on there for who knows how long,” said Johnson, who was elected in 2025.

“So kudos to the aldermen and Mayor (David) Brummel, Mayor (Vivian) Lund, everybody that worked on it up to this point.”

Last year, the city put out a request for development proposals.

“Our focus in that process was not on the highest and best offer for the land. It was on finding a qualified and capable developer that would work with us, that has experience, that can deliver what the community wants to see,” Emery said in February. “And through that process, we have identified Denver Capital as our preferred developer.”

The council later that month approved a purchase and sale agreement with the developer. It’s a “very difficult piece of property to develop,” Alderwoman Clare Barry said then.

The agreement calls for conveying 1.39 acres of the site to Denver Capital for $10 if the developer meets certain conditions. That’s “the developable portion” of the property that's not in a flood plain, Emery said.

“The ownership transfer will only happen after the development plans are approved in accordance with the milestones in the agreement,” she said.

Under the agreement, the developer has not requested, and will not request, any additional economic relief or incentives from the city, including tax increment financing.

The development also must comply with “Warrenville By Design” standards. The idea is “to try to create that Main Street feel,” Johnson said, with residential units above commercial space. Nearby is Al’s Pizza, a Warrenville institution. P.S. Flowers Mercantile has also taken root in a historic blacksmith shop off River Road.

“It's been a long time coming,” the mayor said. “It'll be nice to see this … be that inspiration to bring people into Warrenville, to shop there, to live there and to revitalize that downtown core.”