A decade ago, you couldn’t get former Bolingbrook resident Chris Barranco to pay much attention to Joliet.
Barranco wasn’t alone. In the late 1980s, a lot of people had lost faith in Joliet.
Since the mid-1970s, the Will County town had suffered from a declining industrial base, a victim of the Rust Belt syndrome that swept through the Midwest, economically devastating numerous towns and neighborhoods.
As industry fled, so did well-paying jobs that had been in the town for more than a century. Neighborhoods deteriorated, the historic downtown district lost many longtime businesses and property values stagnated or headed downward.
“We were getting a bum prison-town rap,” says Karen Krause, president of Krause Enterprises, a local home builder and lifelong resident of Joliet.
At the time, she says, few would consider Joliet a destination point for homeowners.
Then, Joliet officials decided to reinvent the town, with hopes of one day mirroring the home construction taking place in nearby suburbs such as Naperville and Orland Park.
“In 1988 the city made a decision to grow and made an aggressive annexation to our borders,” says Don Fisher, Joliet’s director of planning. “We were in a good position because we were not landlocked. There was lots of land to our west that we could use to seed a comeback.”
That comeback, say many, has been remarkable, and just a few months ago, Barranco and her husband, Sam, became two of thousands of new homeowners streaming into Joliet over the last year or so. The couple bought a custom ranch home in the Riverwalk subdivision on Caton Farm Road.
“Ten years ago this was a different town,” says Barranco, who resided in Bolingbrook for 25 years. “Now it’s all new and an up-and-coming place.”
In just a few short years, Joliet has jumped to being one of the top producers as far as new housing construction in the Chicago area, following Chicago, Aurora and Naperville.
In 1997, the city issued nearly 1,200 building permits for new homes, with nearly 1,000 of those for single-family houses.
Through April, it had issued 335 permits for single-family homes and 87 permits for multifamily units.
“I think Joliet has blossomed,” says Martin Schell of Colony Builders of Will County, which is building the Citadel on the Rock Run subdivision. “I think blossom is the perfect word.”
Building a good many of those homes are a number of national home builders who have entered the Joliet market for the first time, says Fisher. “We’re getting a lot of attention now,” he says.
The growth in Joliet has been so strong, it is also seen as sort of a housing anchor, spurring new residential development in nearby towns such as Romeoville, Shorewood and Plainfield. The new development is also helping to spur rehabbing and rising prices in existing neighborhoods of Joliet such as the historic St. Patrick’s and Cathedral areas, says Fisher.
In addition to a new persona for the historic town, there’s another driving force behind the housing boom: price.
“Joliet is a good place to build because land costs are still reasonable in the Will County area,” says Fisher. “In addition to that, Joliet has the capacity infrastructure-wise to serve these properties where many communities don’t.
“Also, our fees are more competitive than other communities,” he adds. “We don’t have the bureaucratic red tape that hinders developers.”
“What it comes down to is that it’s really easy to find a single-family home here for $120,000,” Schell says. “Those affordable prices have attracted a lot of first-time, younger home buyers and now their families are following them out here.”
In addition, the town is attracting move-up buyers, including numerous empty-nesters. Most of the buyers are coming from the nearby west and southwest suburbs.
“You get a whole lot more for your money the farther you go west,” says home buyer Doris Osmond, who in late May was planning to move from Burr Ridge into the Wesmere subdivision. “And for the money, it’s a lovely community. It’s really quite beautiful.”
“Prices are inching up a bit, but for most buyers the homes here are still more attainable than in other southwest suburbs and definitely versus other Chicago area communities,” says Krause, who is building Riverwalk.
“While the area doesn’t have the prestigious nature of a Naperville or Wheaton, someone is going to pay an extra $30,000 to move to those towns,” she adds.
“The problem that other towns face is that they’re landlocked and land prices are sky high,” says Todd Owings, a sales manager with Mirage, another Caton Farm Road subdivision. “That’s not a problem here.”
Prices for new homes in Joliet are about 15 percent less than many neighboring communities, Fisher estimates, with single-family home prices starting as low as the $120,000s and reaching more than $200,000 for custom homes.
Most of those homes are being built along what’s now called the Caton Farm Road Corridor on the city’s northwest side. “It’s now one of the fastest developing corridors in the Chicago areas,” says Fisher.
Among the developments found there is Krause’s Riverwalk, located just west of the Illinois Highway 59 intersection. Prices for the 56 custom single-family homes have ranged from $160,000 to $220,000. Homes range in size from 1,700 to 2,600 square feet.
There are also 68 villa town homes at the site, which range in price from $130,000 to $150,000-plus and in size from 1,440 to 1,750 square feet.
Just west on Caton Farm Road is Wesmere by Neumann Homes, a 1,400-unit single-family development that was opened in 1994 and is expected to be completed by late 1999. Base prices for homes there range from $107,490 to $158,495 with sizes ranging from 1,000 to 3,100 square feet.
Nearby is United Homes’ Mirage, which will have 850 single-family homes, 100 condominiums, 56 attached ranch villas and 94 detached ranch villas. Prices range from $94,990 for a 1,037-square-foot condominium to $154,990 for a 1,866-square-foot single-family home.
East on Caton Farm Road is Citadel on the Rock Run, which is being constructed by Colony Builders of Will County. Home prices there range from $115,000 to $150,000 for 52 town homes and 18 single-family homes.
Growth has settled mostly in Joliet’s northwest quadrant for a simple reason: Homes built there are in the Plainfield School District, a major lure for buyers with school-aged children. Certain subdivisions even have a Plainfield mailing address.
“When the 1990 tornado struck the area, people who saw the news coverage saw that nice houses were destroyed and this wasn’t a town of crime and violence,” says Krause.
Another catalyst for growth has been the construction of Interstate Highway 355. “The opening of I-355 made for easy access for commuting,” says Fisher. “You could live in the Joliet area and work in the western suburbs.”
“Once I-355 opened, other builders began looking at this area,” says Krause.
While growth has been rapid on the outskirts of Joliet, there also have been some distinct changes in the city’s downtown, an important step toward’s Joliet’s next residential development phase, says Fisher.
Over the last 10 years, city officials have been reworking the downtown, rebuilding facades, improving infrastructure and reinventing the Des Plaines Riverfront, once a gritty industrial waterway, as a recreational spot.
The development has been funded by revenue from the town’s riverboat industry, which was established over the last decade.
While no longer the retail magnet it once was, the downtown has done well as a service center, says Fisher. Now, city officials hope to add a new aspect to the downtown: housing.
“We’re starting to get regional developers to look at our downtown area, especially along the riverfront, for new housing, specifically loft conversions,” says Fisher.
“In my opinion, it’s going to be the next big phase,” he says. “We’ve recently conducted a feasibility study that says the downtown area could accommodate 150 units per year for the next several years.”
To accelerate the process, Fisher says the city is now acquiring vacant properties along the Des Plaines River to “landbank them for residential projects in the future.”
Meanwhile, no one expects the strong growth along the Caton Farm Corridor to slow down for years to come.
“We have lots of room to grow,” says Fisher, noting that the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission estimates show that Joliet will have a population of 120,000 by 2020.
“The upside to the growth is that we’re not landlocked yet and the infrastructure in place is serving us well,” says Fisher. “The other upside is that commercial development is following quickly behind the residential development along the Illinois Highway 59 corridor.”
As growth remains strong, officials in Joliet also expect prices to inch up.
“Although prices are rising, the competition here is still keeping homes attainable,” says Krause. “It’s still a great market for buyers because of all of the choices.”
“Joliet will remain an affordable community,” says Fisher.
“This is no longer the place it was painted to be in the 1980s and that prestige is affecting prices,” says Colony’s Schell. “But there are still much better deals out here than just about anywhere.”
