Shoe Factory Road in the far northwest suburbs slices through the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve, where visitors are often spotted picnicking or riding a bike along its quiet trails.
But on the other side of the woods, signs advertise the coming of scores of new homes and development. Metra is looking at running commuter trains on an old freight rail line that runs nearby.
And now a developer has announced the donation of 20 acres in the area to DeKalb-based Northern Illinois University so the school can expand its branch campus in Hoffman Estates.
The school’s newly acquired land is part of a larger development of homes and businesses being proposed by Shoe Factory Road LLC, a development company in Hoffman Estates.
While the $5 million parcel will give the university a chance for some much needed expansion, it ultimately will signal the end of an era for the few remaining farmers who work the fields along Shoe Factory Road. Already, they’re searching for farmland elsewhere.
“It’s being swallowed up, that’s for sure,” said Allen Grischow, looking out at 100 acres he has farmed for more than 15 years. “There’s nothing you can do about it, though.”
Dennis Cortesi, president of the holding company that owns Shoe Factory Road LLC, donated the land to NIU. The firm plans to develop several subdivisions, commercial businesses, an elementary school and a park on the 300 acres next to the university’s land.
The donated land is one of the few remaining undeveloped tracts in the area.
But Cortesi’s offer isn’t all about charity. He stands to gain a substantial tax deduction, said H. James Fox, Cortesi’s attorney.
Regardless, school officials said they were thrilled to have the land for future expansion. The Hoffman Estates campus offers advanced courses in the evening, and already its enrollment has exceeded every estimate.
“It’s a great head start for us,” said Michael P. Malone, NIU’s interim vice president of development and university relations.
“It is the first hurdle that you have anytime you try to develop a facility, and the location, well, you couldn’t ask for a better location.”
The land is at a highly visible intersection south of the Northwest Tollway and west of Beverly Road. It is across the tollway from NIU’s current location in the Prairie Stone business park.
University officials haven’t decided if they will move out of their current campus, which they rent to corporations that need conference space during the day. That will depend on finances and demand for classes, officials said.
When the Hoffman Estates campus opened in 1992, university officials expected it would take at least five years to reach 2,400 students. But the school reached that level in just two years. And because of demand for classes, NIU has begun renting space at the nearby Sears, Roebuck and Co. headquarters.
The enrollment in Hoffman Estates is now 3,200, up from about 1,800 students when the school opened.
Although they haven’t drafted any formal architectural plans, university officials said future enrollment figures could justify a facility that’s at least 100,000 square feet, more than twice the size of the existing Hoffman Estates campus.
NIU officials said the cost to build something that size would be in the neighborhood of $10 million to $15 million.
Meanwhile, local municipal officials are salivating at the chance to develop the village’s far west section, which would bolster Hoffman Estates’ coffers with an injection of new property-tax revenue.
