Robert C. Ranquist chose a career in real estate rather than medicine like his father. Yet Ranquist, 47 and builder of about 2,000 housing units in the Chicago area, said he is following in his late father`s footsteps.
Dr. Robert C. Ranquist, a dermatologist who practiced in Chicago`s Beverly area and in Evergreen Park, ”always dedicated himself to
excellence,” Ranquist said.
”He was a perfectionist. He would work 24 hours a day if he had to. He would be up in the middle of the night making calls and answering questions and taking care of people`s problems.”
By striving to build high-quality housing, ”I`m building on the foundation that was instilled in me by my father,” he said. ”I get a great deal of personal satisfaction and fulfillment from seeing that I can make people happy with their most expensive and valuable physical possession.”
Ranquist is president of Robert C. Ranquist & Co., a developer of residential and commercial real estate, based in southwest suburban Orland Park.
Last year, the firm`s Courtyards of Westchester development won three honors for condominium and townhouse design in the annual Key Awards competition among members of the Home Builders Association of Greater Chicago. The development offers condominiums and townhouses ranging in price from $145,000 to $230,000.
A newer development, the Woodlands of Darien, opened its models in May and by last week had sold more than 90 of its planned 200 units, which range from condominium-style ”villas” priced from $229,900 to detached single-family houses costing $300,000.
”Our models there won two awards from the Sales and Marketing Council of the Home Builders Association,” Ranquist said.
”The villa units are what we describe as the condo of the 1990s. They have attached garages, cathedral ceilings, fine molding and detailing, gorgeous kitchens with custom cabinetry, master bathrooms that include whirlpool tubs and separate shower stalls, double vanities and wall mirrors.
”But our main secret is that we bring the outside in. When you enter the front door, you look right through the unit and out into the woods. Landscaping is our forte in all our projects.”
The company, said Ranquist, has shifted its emphasis in recent years from the southwest suburbs, where he began, to markets in the west and northwest.
”We have a sales center open at our Westchester Club development in Westchester, across from a proposed nature preserve. That development will have townhomes, with Colonial Williamsburg-style exteriors, priced from $275,000 to $350,000. Models won`t be ready until March, but just by showing the drawings, we already have 20 signed contracts worth $6 million.”
At another development, Pinehurst in Darien, models of single-family detached homes are being built adjacent to the Carriage Green golf course. Houses are priced from $230,000 to $260,000. Of the 65 that are planned, 20 are sold, Ranquist said.
Plans are in the works for Cobblebrook Crossing, a development in Naperville that will be similar to the Woodlands, offering both single-family and multifamily dwellings, he said.
”And I`ve acquired 83 acres of magnificent wooded land in Burr Ridge. There`s a lake and hills 60 feet high. Our in-house land planner, Gene Kripak, and I went to Colorado and California to look at housing. We`re working with an architecture firm from Santa Monica. We`ll be building 350 townhouses and single-family homes reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright houses.
”In Colorado, the townhouses have higher ceilings, more volume, more windows, dramatic exterior staircases, larger entries and two- and three-car garages. It will be a new concept for Chicago.”
The single-family houses will probably be priced from $450,000 to $750,000, he said.
”The Colorado townhouses will be in the $350,000 range, and clustered townhouses will be in the $250,000 range.”
The nurturing of such projects, said Ranquist, has been not only profitable but a lot of fun.
That attempt, he said, involves working 80 hours a week.
His firm has 50 full-time employees ”of whom I am very demanding,” he said.
His wife Maureen is the firm`s vice president for office management. They have a son studying at St. Mary College in Winona, Minn., and a son and daughter at Sandburg High School in Orland Park.
Ranquist`s brother, Edward, is one of his top assistants in the firm, and another brother, William, is a real estate broker in Naperville. There is also a sister, Kathy Desmet, who lives in Palos Heights.
Ranquist`s emphasis on developing in the west and northwest suburbs is partly a result of painful lessons he and other builders learned during the last housing recession, he said.
”The builder who doesn`t remember what happened in the mid-`70s and early `80s is remiss in his responsibility not only to his company but also to his bankers and everyone else involved,” he said.
”It was the worst recession we`ve had in 50 years. I`ve diversified and gone into commercial development. Other astute builders are doing the same. We have to remember the past, look over our shoulder and remember what has happened. Politicians and builders weren`t prepared, both made mistakes and both have learned some lessons. Still I can`t say that such a thing will never happen again.”
Ranquist`s mistake, he said, was that ”I had all my eggs in one basket. Orland Park-where I was building-was probably the hardest hit. They didn`t have a good strong job base. I remember those days and concentrate my land purchasing in the north and northwest where there are jobs.”
The Orland Park area has been good to him, though. His headquarters is in a 19-building office complex he built there in the late 1970s and in which all the buildings have been sold. He has also sold out the 180-unit Willow Lake condominium development there.
”Now the West Orland area is hot,” said Ranquist. ”I have substantial landholdings there for commercial and residential. I`m applying for zoning for 150 acres at the intersection of 143d Street and Wolf Road. We`ll have a 12-acre shopping center and single-family and multifamily homes.
”We`ll have a section of multifamily and clustered single-family units, like at the Woodlands of Darien. I expect to price some single-family units from $225,000 to $450,000.”
Ranquist was born on Chicago`s South Side, graduated from St. Ignatius High School and earned a business degree at John Carroll University in Cleveland.
”I attended John Marshall Law School for a year, then a law was announced that a person couldn`t represent a client both as his attorney and his broker. That was a junction for me, and I decided to go into real estate rather than law.
”I can express my creativity by being a developer more than by being an attorney or strictly a businessman. This is not just a job. It`s a fulfillment of a need.”
In 1963, he went to work for Clem B. Mulholland Inc., a brokerage and development firm on the Southwest Side.
In 1968, he went into his own business. In partnership with his father, he built a 12-flat at 101st Street and Pulaski Road in Oak Lawn.
”Six months after it was built, I decided I wanted to go further,”
Ranquist said. ”So my dad bought me out and I got operating capital.”
He built 12-flats in Alsip and sold them, then built the 144-unit Chippendale Apartments and the 240-unit Cambridge Square Apartments there.
Fifteen years ago he developed the Sandridge Apartments in Calumet City, a 276-unit development adjacent to the Sandridge Nature Center. The development ”has won numerous awards,” said Ranquist.
”I`m very proud of that development” he said, ”and I still own it.”
The development of apartments became less economically attractive during the 1970s, he said, because ”interest rates went through the roof and building costs went crazy because of inflation. Every time you picked up the phone, concrete had gone up another $5 a yard. Meanwhile, the rents you could get were remaining stable.”
Builders resumed apartment development in the `80s when demand brought the ability to increase rents while inflation and building costs remained low, he said, ”but now the tax incentives have been eliminated and builders are out of apartments again. As soon as the politicians get enough pressure on them, they will get the laws changed and the builders will be back.”
(Current tax law has eliminated former incentives by lengthening depreciation schedules, lowering tax rates and tightening rules with respect to deductions for losses.)
The quality of homes, however, will be influenced most by the changing demands of the buying public, Ranquist said.
”I think people are tired of the mediocrity that has been offered by many Chicago builders during the past 10 years,” he said.
”They`re tired of the rectangular shaped two-stories. I see them more sophisticated and selective.
