‘More things coming’: Lake Zurich officials bullish on downtown renewal

The quest to revive downtown Lake Zurich has been an arduous journey since the village began buying properties more than 20 years ago to create a canvas for redevelopment.

Village leaders wanted to combine and assemble sites into larger parcels to create a master-planned downtown.

There have been successes. Old, dilapidated structures were cleared and, in recent years, apartment complexes erected. Other buildings have been renovated and new ones planned.

A 20-year-old promenade along Main Street, on the southeast side of the namesake lake, was refreshed last year with new decking, landscaping and other features.

But the town’s vision remains incomplete, in part because of challenges and setbacks along the way. They include Main Street, also known as Route 22, being rerouted to bypass the traditional downtown and the Great Recession, which derailed redevelopment and put the master plan concept on the shelf.

Now, however, all but two of the 37 properties the village purchased have been sold off. That’s considered an achievement in an ongoing effort village officials say has considerable momentum as a result of actions taken over several years.

“For me, that’s the payoff to see everybody’s excitement about what we’ve been doing here,” said Mike Brown, public works director and a Lake Zurich native with 35 years tenure with the village.

The shift began in about 2017 when the village created the Sunset Pavilion restaurant on the beach at Breezewald Park, according to Brown and others.

“That's when we started to see the pedestrian traffic ramp up,” he said. “That sparked a lot of energy.”

The village now is investing more than $13 million in public improvements including upgrading Main Street from the promenade east to Church Street.

The streetscape improvement is intended to refresh the area and promote public use by slowing traffic with narrower streets, landscaped medians and other features.

“It’s a brand new look,” said Mayor Tom Poynton.

The goal is to enhance the pedestrian experience, officials say, as the village’s updated comprehensive plan calls for walkability in the area.

And at last, the pending development of a perennial sore spot may prove to be the icing on the cake.

In the village's own words, Block A — a consolidation of 10 parcels across from the promenade — has seen “nearly 20 years of community planning, project proposals and alternating cycles of optimism and disappointment.”

Eight buildings including homes and restaurants Twin’s Place and JJ Twigs once stood there but the property has been an empty lot for more than 20 years.

Block A was marketed as a potential commercial destination and an anchor for the west end of Main Street. But the interest was for residential-only concepts that came with “unrealistic” requests for free land, tax abatement or other incentives, according to the village.

That changed this week with the preliminary approval of the major components of a two-story restaurant and 19 townhouses called The Waterfront of Lake Zurich.

Pending final approvals, Deerfield-based The Huron Group will buy the 1.7-acre property for $1.05 million.

Company president Derick Goodman said that while meeting on another project, village staff shared their vision for downtown and the investments that have been and continue to be made on underground utilities, the promenade, and streetscape.

“Investments such as these create new opportunities and encourage developers such as us to come to town,” he said.

Block A, he added, is in a great location in the entry corridor to downtown, has great lakefront views and potential for mixed use that’s a key component to any new downtown development.

That potentially includes other projects by Huron, according to Goodman.

“We feel that this might be the first project, if approved, leading into multiple other projects downtown,” he told village trustees before the vote.

During the discussion of the plan, Poynton said in pre-promenade days only a guardrail separated traffic from the lake and there was no public viewing spot.

He displayed an old photo of JJ Twigs as an example saying “so you can understand where we were and where we’re going.”

“The streetscape is big for us,” he added. “We have more things coming.”