Oakbrook Terrace begins the new year with the most potential development on the drawing boards in some time.
Four projects are in the serious planning stages, and a fifth that is embroiled in a lawsuit may be close to a settlement that would allow construction to begin.
Additionally, development may begin at any time on jailed developer Robert Krilich’s mostly unbuilt, 80-acre Royce Renaissance property. Right up to his incarceration in late October, Krilich was negotiating potential sales to several different developers.
With the office market on the rise and Oakbrook Terrace’s location as attractive as ever, developers are snapping up the few remaining vacant tracts in the city.
The two biggest proposals are a six-story office building on about seven vacant acres along Meyers Road just south of the Oakbrook Terrace Corporate Center, and a 240-unit luxury apartment complex on another 7 1/2 vacant acres to the east, just off Trans Am Drive.
The proposed office site, planned for the last undeveloped parcel along unincorporated Oakbrook Terrace’s portion of Meyers, would need to be annexed to the city.
The proposed apartment complex would entail eight buildings, according to a preliminary drawing furnished by developers.
City planners planned to discuss on the office project, but the apartment development is more preliminary.
“I don’t have a problem with the apartment project, except maybe its density,” said Oakbrook Terrace Mayor William Kallas. But, he said, “an office building can’t work back there, because it can’t be seen.”
Among the smaller developments on track is a proposed 3,000-square-foot convenience store and gas station at Roosevelt Road and Summit Street. A Citgo service station and a shuttered hot dog stand currently are on the corner. The project already has received a favorable recommendation from the city’s planning and zoning commission.
A public meeting was held for a proposed annexation of about six acres southeast of 16th Street and Meyers Road in connection with a proposal to build five luxury single-family homes.
