Entertainers Barbara Eden and Richard Simmons promoted Carillon as the Midwest`s largest retirement community, a paradise for active seniors.
Here, right outside Romeoville, is where Lake Worth, Fla.-based Cenvill Development Corp. decided to test the thesis that a golf course community for senior citizens in the Midwest would be as successful as similar projects in Florida. Cenvill envisioned 8,100 single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums on its 1,477-acre parcel by the year 2000-a 15,000-person private community with no children.
”Cenvill`s marketing studies showed that the typical retiree in the Midwest did not migrate to the Sun Belt as much as folks from the Northeast,” said Carillon project manager Dan Houghton.
But the thesis hasn`t been given a fair test.
At about the same time construction at Carillon began in 1989, First American Bank & Trust Co. of Lake Worth, Fla., which owned 96 percent of Cenvill`s stock, went under and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC)
took over Cenvill. Because $39 million was owed to the project lenders-Security National Bank (now part of Bank of America) and Michigan National Bank-the FDIC decided in 1991 to halt construction with 500 homes and the 18- hole golf course completed.
For 15 months, the project remained in limbo. On July 22, Bank of America took over the property from Cenvill because the company still couldn`t pay its debts, but bank officials said immediately they were not interested in maintaining ownership.
You`d think the uncertainty of the project would concern Carillon`s 850 residents. After all, the 150,000-square-foot clubhouse with tennis courts, pools, and dining facilities still isn`t there. Neither is the 400,000-square- foot shopping mall. The 24-hour nursing service has been canceled.
Yet, residents Burt Fry, 52; Hal Bangert, 68; Jim Meehan, 65; Frank Gawle, 72; and Jim Shannon, 59, all insist they love life at Carillon. All tout the golf course and the pastoral setting of their homes.
They also like Carillon`s private security service, the exercise facilities, the free transportation, the field trips, the theater, and the fact that employees maintain their homes and yards.
The five residents agree there is a market for a very large active senior community. Some have friends who are waiting for construction to resume so they can move in.
A new owner would turn things around, they say.
”(Carillon) is a gold mine,” said Fry. ”Someone`s going to make a ton of money out here.”
Some real estate analysts don`t agree. They say there just aren`t that many senior citizens in the Chicago area who want to live in a local planned community.
”Carillon, in terms of remaining an adult community, is undoubtedly a question mark,” said Tracy Cross of Northfield-based Tracy Cross
& Associates, who recently said he could envison sales of only 250 residential units per year, while Carillon`s latest stated aim was to build 8,100 in 10 years.
