When urban planners talk about the need for downtown residential development, traditionally they are referring to putting condominiums or rental apartment buildings in big cities such as Chicago that want to lure suburbanites to revitalize their central areas.
But during the late 1980s a contrary movement began to emerge, the development of upscale apartment buildings and condominiums in downtown areas of older suburbs such as Evanston and Arlington Heights.
Just like Chicago, these towns have put a high priority on pumping up activity in downtowns that over the last 20 or 30 years have grown tired and empty, sapped by competition from huge outlying shopping malls.
Now luxury condominium construction has come to downtown Highland Park, putting further shine on the successful revamping of the central district, which just a decade ago was suffering serious blight because of overwhelming competition from the Northbrook Court shopping center just beyond the city`s borders.
And those projects are drawing some high-end condo buyers who might otherwise move to downtown Chicago.
Completed this year was the Terraces on Mulberry, a five-story, $15 million building just south of downtown Highland Park with 36 condominiums priced from $235,000 to $630,000, including six terraced penthouses.
And ground was broken last month for the $17 million Park Claridge, also on the southern downtown fringe, which has 36 units ranging in price from $405,000 to $585,000.
The developers of the two projects both cited the lack of luxury multifamily homes on the North Shore to meet the needs of empty nesters seeking to leave their large houses as the key element in their decision to build.
”There were beautiful condominiums in downtown Chicago, but I didn`t see anything really neat in the suburbs,” said Ron Friedman, chairman of Arc Real Estate Development, which built the Terraces.
Arc president Jerry Schwartz pointed out that an earlier condo boom had resulted in such successful luxury projects as the buildings in the Plaza del Lago area on Wilmette`s lakefront, but little had been constructed in the 1980s.
”Going to downtown Chicago, you had style and pizazz,” he said, alluding to the spate of new condominium projects built in the Michigan Avenue area during the last decade. ”Out in the suburbs there was nothing to choose from.”
Richard J. Robin, president of Robin Construction Corp., which is developing the Park Claridge, agreed. His original plan had been to do a project with smaller, less expensive units, but he decided high-end was more appropriate to the North Shore.
”Nobody had really developed anything on that scale,” he said.
Also figuring high in the builders` calculations was Highland Park`s success during the 1980s in reawakening its downtown with an aggressive redevelopment program, whose centerpiece is the Port Clinton Square shopping and office center adjacent to the Chicago and North Western commuter railroad tracks.
The redevelopment, for which the city spent more than $11.7 million, helped attact dozens of stores, and the continued health of the area is indicated by the fact that 22 stores opened downtown in 1989, 12 in 1990 and nine more through Sept. 30 of this year.
”The strengthening of downtown was a major factor in our decision,”
said Schwartz. ”This was a community we wanted to build in, a community on the upswing.”
Other factors favoring Highland Park, a city of about 31,000, include a convenient commute to the Loop via expressways or the train; the presence of Ravinia Park, whose music festival is to some people the meaning of summer;
and the proximity of a number of country clubs. With all these draws, Friedman said he figured he could be successful attracting the high-end North Shore market.
He acknowledged that Chicago`s swank condos have been a magnet for many people unloading their suburban mansions, but voiced confidence in his ability to carve out a market niche.
”There`s a tremendous amount of people who don`t want to live in a house and don`t want to live in the city (of Chicago),” he said.
Price may be part of the reason. Ira Holtzman, a multifamily specialist with the real estate firm of Grubb & Ellis, pointed out that suburban luxury condo prices tend to run lower than those in Chicago, where $200 to $300 a square foot is common. The range at the Terraces is about $150 to $180 a square foot.
”But the bottom line is they don`t want to be in the city,” said Holtzman.
An example is Arthur Greenfield, an accountant in his early 40s working for a downtown Chicago firm who moved with his wife to the Terraces from Skokie this summer.
”We had our own house, but we wanted to downsize to a condo,” he said.
”We initially thought about moving downtown to Streeterville, but the units there were smaller than what we wanted.”
The congestion in Chicago`s Streeterville area and the difficulty in shopping nearby also turned them off, Greenfield said. So they ended up with a two-bedroom, 1,750-square-foot condo at the Terraces.
”We were looking for convenience to shopping and cultural events, so the fact that Highland Park has a viable downtown meant a lot to us,” he said.
”The fact that it`s five minutes to the train station didn`t hurt, either.”
Perhaps more typical of buyers at the Terraces are William and Marjorie Sherman, a couple in their 60s who moved from one of the Plaza del Lago area condominiums.
”My grandchildren and friends are here, and our life just sort of centers up here,” said Mrs. Sherman. There`s never been a luxury apartment house in Highland Park. Had this been up, I would have been here 15 years ago.”
Mrs. Sherman, who was living on the lakeshore before, now has a view of downtown Highland Park. ”It`s very attractive,” she said. ”It looks like a small New England village.”
Not everyone would compare downtown Highland Park with a New England village, but preserving the area`s charm while increasing its vitality has been a prime objective for the city, according to Mayor Daniel Pierce.
”It`s always a balance to keep the downtown area alive but keep it from overwhelming the residential areas,” he said. ”We have a unique residential area with a viable downtown, one of the few left.”
Pierce said the delicacy of the balance was underlined recently when a proposal to increase the allowed residential density of a four-block downtown mixed-use area from 15 to 50 units per acre was dropped after complaints from residents living in homes near downtown.
”People are concerned primarily about changing the zoning so that traffic and parking problems increase,” he said.
There was no opposition from neighbors to the either the Terraces or Park Claridge projects, he added, because both were already allowed by the zoning and replaced vacant buildings. The Terraces is on the site of an abandoned dairy, while the Park Claridge is going up where a closed parochial school had stood.
One of the goals of the downtown redevelopment plan adopted in 1981 by the town was to promote housing diversity, including condominiums.
Pierce noted that some interest has been expressed in developing more multifamily units at a site along the northern edge of downtown Highland Park being vacated by a car dealership. ”Whatever the market will bear,” he added.
Despite their avowed conviction that they are filling a demonstrable housing gap, developers of both projects express concerns of their own over the state of the market.
Friedman admitted that sales at the Terraces have been soft, with only about one-third of the 36 condominiums purchased. Sales started last October and the first owners moved in last May.
The developers are trying to accelerate the sales pace by offering to pay the full principal and interest of a buyer`s current mortgage for up to six months upon purchase of a Terrace condominium. The offer expires Dec. 15.
Robin said market conditions had caused him to delay the Park Claridge project for a year. ”The winds of war were blowing, there was doom and gloom in the media, and people weren`t in a buying mood. There was a dryness in the resale market.”
But he said activity has picked up, and the project reached 40 percent sales before construction started, a necessity to get financing, he added.
The pre-construction sales were generated in good part by a kitchen and master bath built in a Port Clinton Square sales office, he noted. ”We wanted to show the kinds of finishes and quality in the building,” he said. ”Even at this level, they`re still tire-kickers.”
Both builders are touting spaciousness and the ultimate in luxury. The Terraces offer double-door entries for each unit, with a lot of marble and granite standard in the higher-priced units.
A lavish hand with those sumptuous stone surfaces is also a feature at the Park Claridge, which will have an indoor pool and whirlpool as added attractions.
The six penthouses at the Terraces, which give the project its name because of their ample balcony areas that extend out in a series of terraces in the front, may set a new standard for urban-type opulence in a suburban setting. The two largest, with views of an unpretentious small-town street scene and railroad tracks, go for more than $600,000 apiece.
