12-unit apartment building planned for long vacant downtown St. Charles property
A pitch to turn a long-vacant city-owned property in downtown St. Charles into an apartment building and parking garage appears to be moving forward, after the St. Charles City Council recently OK’d a redevelopment agreement for the project.
The property is located at Illinois Street and Route 31, and represents the last piece in the city’s ongoing First Street Redevelopment project. St. Charles has long been working to develop this segment of its downtown.
Original plans approved in 2006 for the lot envisioned three- or four-story buildings with ground-floor commercial space and upper-level offices or residential space.
The city recently sought proposals for the project and received only one formal plan from a developer. That developer group — called Fore R’s, LLC — includes local developer Bob Rasmussen, along with Rick Dahl, Ryan Corcoran and Ryan Samuelson.
Its proposal is for a four-story building with a parking garage on the ground floor and 12 apartment units on the upper three floors. Rent for the units would range from $1,900 to $2,400 a month, plus a $125 per month parking fee. The total estimated construction cost is a little over $3 million.
The pitch was considered at a meeting of the council’s committee of the whole back in May, at which the developer’s initial financial requests of the city generated some pushback.
Initially, the developer was asking the city to transfer ownership of the property at no cost and to provide tax increment financing, or TIF, funding for streetscape improvements for the project.
A TIF district is a sort of economic development incentive, in which the value of a property is essentially frozen, and the extra or “increment” taxes created by developing the property go into a special fund used to pay for costs related to improving the area. The lot being eyed for development is part of the city’s First Street TIF District.
The development is projected to generate around $100,000 in property tax revenue in the first year after it’s completed, a number that’s expected to increase over time, per the city.
However, the request for the city to give the developer the property for free generated some opposition at the May meeting.
So, in a change from the original request, the developer is now agreeing to purchase it for $100,000, according to a city memo included in a Committee of the Whole agenda from earlier this month. The downtown lot just west of the Fox River has been appraised at $340,000, according to the city.
Under the agreement, however, St. Charles would reimburse the developer for the costs of streetscape improvements along the Illinois Street frontage, which is expected to cost $50,000 to $100,000, per the city memo from earlier this month. The city would also install all required primary electrical infrastructure, a transformer pad and a transformer to serve the new building, which is expected to cost about $49,000.
If the developer does not fulfill the terms of the agreement, the property would revert to the city, per the memo.
Under the agreement, the developer would start construction by May 1 and obtain an occupancy permit by Dec. 1, 2027.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com