Like the funeral food that Hamlet lamented wasn’t yet cold before his widowed mother remarried, the announced closure of Arlington International Racecourse was less than a week old when neighboring towns began discussing the track’s replacement.
And though track owner Richard Duchossois says he’s not prepared yet to tear down or sell his horse racing jewel, the suburbs that border the track want some say if something else is developed on the 320-acre site–especially if it brings more frequent or heavier traffic.
Though the track is entirely within the boundaries of Arlington Heights, Rolling Meadows and Palatine border the track and have put up with traffic and other spillover problems for years without benefit of tax receipts.
Rolling Meadows is particularly hard hit, because it borders the racecourse on two sides–including a stretch of Euclid Avenue that is patrons’ major entrance and exit route.
So, following the announcement that Duchossois won’t hold horse racing at the track in 1998, and may shut down permanently, Rolling Meadows Mayor Thomas Menzel got his bid in early for a place at the table if decisions are made on what comes next.
“I would hope that some egos can be put aside and we can take a regional approach to what will go there,” Menzel said. “Here is an opportunity for us to sit down together and do some creative thinking to see how we can help each other.”
Children from Palatine and Rolling Meadows attend Palatine Elementary District 15, which receives $2 million a year in taxes from the track. And Palatine shares a short section of Northwest Highway with the facility.
“We would support the idea that there be some regional consultation because we are all impacted by traffic or noise or pollution or whatever might be generated at the site,” said Palatine Village Manager Michael Kadlecik.
But officials from both neighboring suburbs agree that Arlington Heights is under no legal obligation to bring other municipalities into its deliberations. And Arlington Heights Village Manager William Dixon said discussions about such a possibility are premature.
“Arlington Heights has traditionally been a good regional neighbor,” Dixon said. “But the property is in private ownership, and we are awaiting word from the owner as to what use might be made of the property.”
Scott Mordell, chief executive officer of the racecourse, said that many of the track’s 150 full-time employees will begin planning what might be developed on the site immediately after the end of this year’s racing season.
“We will enjoy finishing out the season, regroup, and then begin planning for the future,” Mordell said. “We have looked at a lot of different things over the years, and none appeared to be really solid. We are not prepared to speculate yet on what we will do.”
The kind of regional cooperation that Menzel hopes for has happened in Illinois only when unincorporated property was at stake. Even then, the agreements reached in such informal discussions are not legally binding.
The Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission has failed to change state law to let such agreements be legally binding.
Nationally, attempts at regional cooperation succeed most often if the site under discussion is in more than one jurisdiction, or if the community controlling the zoning–in this case Arlington Heights–has something to gain by sharing its decision-making power, said William Dodge, executive director of the National Association of Regional Councils, based in Washington, D.C.
For example, a state might be more likely to invest in road improvements for a development if all the neighboring towns agree the work is needed, Dodge said.
“More and more, there is a sense that we can do it the old way and beat each other up over these projects, or we can bury our parochial mindset and work together,” Dodge said.
Such cooperation might even attract a higher-quality developer, Dodge said, because “developers are becoming much more attuned to not getting in the middle of endless dogfights between municipalities.”
Menzel says he knows what he’s proposing is a fairly radical change for the northwest suburbs.
“We have to have a paradigm shift,” Menzel said. “Making it into a 12-month-a-year facility (rather than the May-to-October racing season) is only bad if we don’t plan for it. If we realize we are a major urban area and act like one, it could be a benefit for all of us.”
Speculation on future development includes a sports or entertainment complex, light industry, offices, shopping or homes. Most of those would increase the amount of traffic on Euclid Avenue, Wilke Road, Northwest Highway and Illinois Highway 53, the roads that surround the site.
“Whatever it is, if it can’t be a racecourse, I would hope it would be an economic boon for the area and not a vacant facility,” said Palatine Mayor Rita Mullins. “And I am for a regional approach. This affects all of us.”
