Bruno Bottarelli thinks it’s a safe bet that you’re lonely. He’s so sure, in fact, he’s willing to wager $250 million on it.
His gamble is HighPoint Community, a 1,600-unit development in southwest suburban Romeoville that may be less a subdivision than a colossal experiment in social engineering: It’s a cross between a ’70s singles complex and Hull House, with a dash of God and the Internet.
Developer Marquette Companies is combining massive doses of social activity, technology and spirituality, which Bottarelli says will let the residents create a “genuine community.”
HighPoint isn’t the first development to attempt to restore the neighborliness that social critics say has been lost in the suburban landscape, but it’s unique in its plan to attract people from all income levels. And it’s part of a movement in planning and design circles that seeks to imbue new neighborhoods with an old-fashioned quality by making it easier for neighbors to interact.
Among the better-known developments within the genre are Seaside on the Florida panhandle; Kentlands in Maryland; and Celebration, built by the Walt Disney Co., in Orlando.
Critics say these places cater mostly to a more upscale market, rather than an economically mixed one. Seaside, for example, is primarily a vacation resort, and houses at Celebration are priced far above the median for the Orlando area.
They also point out that businesses and services have been slow to materialize, leaving the residents with little choice but to drive a lot, which is the antithesis of the movement. The school that Disney built at Celebration has had major problems with staff turnover.
Marquette Companies says it’s trying to learn from the other communities. HighPoint rentals range from $695 to $1,125, with a discount to senior citizens in designated units. The first for-sale housing (“carriage homes” with a rental unit included, which will begin sales next year) probably will cost $140,000 to $160,000, according to Tom Lowry, general manager at HighPoint.
Plans for a major grocery store and bank are well under way, with other businesses in negotiation, Bottarelli says.
To cut down on driving, there will be a free shuttle bus to the Lemont Metra station–and continental breakfast in the community center while you wait for the next one.
Physical features aside, what may set HighPoint apart from the other communities is its determination to draw residents of all economic levels and to offer nearly cradle-to-grave special amenities and services.
The vision for the fledgling community includes basketball leagues, boat rentals on 15-acre Lake Friendship, money-management classes, food co-ops, Girl Scouts, a farmers’ market, garden clubs and a theater group. There are plans for Meals on Wheels and marriage-counseling services. Many of the activities should be multigenerational, so older adults and teens can mentor the children, Bottarelli says.
HighPoint wants to have its own 4th of July fireworks. It’s negotiating to have Habitat for Humanity build several houses there, assisted by HighPoint residents. The list goes on for pages.
Although there will be some paid staff “facilitators” to generate this activity, much of it will be organized and carried out by volunteers within the community: From the beginning, volunteerism has been part of the grand plan for getting the residents to interact, Bottarelli said, though for a while he wondered how to motivate the locals’ involvement and how to coordinate it all.
“We looked around and realized that churches are experts at getting people to volunteer,” he says.
So the developer began “shopping churches,” as he puts it, having determined that a Christian denomination would be “most palatable to the majority of the marketplace. We are in a predominantly Christian market and I wanted to find a user-friendly church.”
He became intrigued with Community Christian Church in Naperville–so intrigued that he joined it.
“Three years ago I didn’t even believe in God,” he says. describing his attraction to its “rock ‘n’ roll Sunday” atmosphere and its appeal to youth. “Sometimes when you go to a church there, it seems more like you’re going to a conference.”
The evangelical church in Naperville eventually will hold weekly services at HighPoint, which is not particularly unusual in master-planned communities, which often include a church or two.
What is unusual is that the church’s ministers are on the board of directors of the Institute for Community, or IFC, the not-for-profit group that will coordinate activities at the development’s community center.
“The whole religion thing is real risky,” Bottarelli says, conceding that potential residents may fear being proselytized. “They may look at `spirituality’ as your religion. They look at it from an exclusionary standpoint based on what kind of God you believe in.
“But the IFC’s role is not to promote one kind of religion over another. It’s to build quality relationships.”
Dave Pastrick said the subject of religion never came up as he toured the model apartments. Pastrick is among the handful of initial residents who began to move in July 1. The former Naperville resident said, instead, that what got his attention was the technology.
The entire community is going to be fully “wired”–multiple phone lines, Internet-ready and capable of high-speed data transmission. The extensive web site (http://www.highpointcommunity.com) is up and running. Residents who don’t have personal computers can surf the Net over coffee at a “cyber-cafe” (here the older adults would be mentored by the kids, Bottarelli says) in the 24,000-square-foot Friendship Community Centre, which is scheduled to be completed in January.
All residents will be assigned e-mail addresses and will receive free phone-mail service and audio text that will function as a “bulletin board” of community activities. A separate cable-television channel will broadcast community events.
Bottarelli says all of this is designed to combat loneliness, something that has troubled the real estate developer–whose firm made a national reputation primarily by building and managing apartment complexes–for years.
“I became aware of how desperately lonely people are,” he says, blaming the design of his own developments for contributing to the sense of isolation he perceived in the people who live in them. “I felt like there was something missing.”
Thus began four years of market research and focus groups that led to his decision to build HighPoint.
Some outsiders say he’s on to something. Gerald Celente is the founder of the Trends Research Institute, a consortium of “trends trackers” in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and author of the recent book, “Trends 2000,” which examines possible sociological changes in the next decade.
“All you have to do is look at the numbers,” Celente said of what he sees as an “explosion” of loneliness. “There are as many single households in the U.S. today as there are married couples with children. It used to be 40 percent married with children; now it’s about 25.3.
“Yes, people are lonely. This guy (Bottarelli) is appealing to all the demographic trends of consumer needs–emotional, physical, spiritual–and there is definitely a move toward spirituality. This guy is 100 percent right.”
But new resident Pastrick doesn’t really buy into the loneliness angle.
“It’s nice that the whole neighborhood is set up so that everybody has a chance to get to know each other. But I think that being lonely is up to the individual person. If (people) want to be lonely, they are.”
Tim Chaney isn’t so sure. In January he and his brother, Randy, will move into an as-yet unbuilt two-bedroom apartment at HighPoint. Currently a resident of Huntley in McHenry County, he’s moving to Romeoville to be nearer his family. He says he doesn’t see loneliness as an issue.
Then he reflects a moment and changes his mind. “Well, I do, actually. I do think there is a void in my life. I have friends up here (in Huntley), but I don’t know them all that well.
“In the Chicagoland area you constantly have people moving in and out because of industry,” says the 24-year-old motel manager. “They will work their butts off and they don’t have time to do anything else or they don’t know anybody.”
James Carper, editor of Professional Builder magazine, a national trade journal, said he hasn’t encountered much “malaise” in the marketing research of the builders he studies around the country.
Nonetheless, he said that selling to the “lonely” in the Chicago area may work best where HighPoint is located, along the I-55 corridor where the transferee market is substantial.
Carper has a less-complicated suggestion for how the home building industry could foster a sense of “community.”
“Most builders could promote more social interaction simply by removing air conditioners from their houses and forcing people to go outside and catch a breeze.”
