To grow, a city must build. And when a city has built as much as Crystal Lake has over the last 10 years, it’s clear the city has grown–a lot.
“We had a burst of housing, and now we’re seeing an increase in commercial and industrial development,” said Michelle Rentzsch, the suburb’s planning director. “Commercial development has picked up tremendously in the last two or three years.”
The city has added 3,360 single-family homes and 900 multifamily units since 1990, according to Crystal Lake Building Department figures.
There are also 127 new commercial buildings, many of them retail stores covering 50,000 square feet or more. Another 1,199 commercial buildings have been remodeled or expanded.
Twenty-four industrial buildings have been built, and 294 others expanded or remodeled.
This construction has supported a population increase from 24,512 in 1990 to an estimated 34,401 when a special census was done in 1997. Predictions are that the 2000 census will put the population at nearly 40,000.
The pace of new-home construction has slowed to 233 new single-family homes in 1999 from its peak of 507 in 1989, but the pace of commercial development has picked up.
Forty-eight commercial buildings were built and 444 were expanded or remodeled from 1997 through 1999, according to Ken Smith, Crystal Lake’s Building Department director.
Smith said the value of that construction topped $82 million. From 1994 through 1996, the city saw construction of 35 commercial buildings and remodeling or expansion of 314.
Smith and Rentzsch agree that population growth has spurred commercial and industrial growth, which, in turn, is continuing to attract new residents who like the area’s stores or want to live near where they work.
“The Bohl Farm really set the tone–that and Sports Authority with the redevelopment of Crystal Point Mall. The mall turned the tide,” Rentzsch said. “They’ve made (U.S.) Route 14 a regional shopping experience for the area.”
Five years ago Joseph Freed and Associates in Wheeling bought Crystal Point Mall, which in the 1970s became the first enclosed shopping mall in McHenry County. It had about 325,000 square feet of store space, with a few large stores and dozens of smaller ones.
By the mid-1980s, the mall was in decline. When Freed bought it, more than half the space was empty.
Freed decided to remarket the mall by gutting the inside and separating it into several large stores. Only Kmart and Walgreens remain from the enclosed mall days.
Sports Authority was the first of several new regional or national stores to move in. Others included Bed Bath and Beyond, Best Buy, Borders Books and Music and Office Depot.
Crystal Point’s remarketing was soon followed by development of the Bohl Farm, 40 acres east of the mall. Bohl Farm’s stores include Target, Kohl’s Department Store, Linens & Things, Dress Barn, Dominick’s Finer Foods and Barnes & Noble.
In the last three years, 22 stores have been built along U.S. Highway 14, adding 525,000 square feet of retail space, Smith said.
Professional office space is also being built. At Illinois Highway 31 across from Ambutal, at the north end of town, plans are in the works for three more buildings to go with the existing Route 31 Medical Center offices, Rentzsch said. Mercy Health Systems also has plans for medical offices at Three Oaks Road and Illinois 31 at the south end of town.
There also has been a lot of building in downtown Crystal Lake. Some of it has resulted from a tax increment finance (TIF) district the city established in the 1980s.
In a TIF district, property is taxed as it ordinarily would be as redevelopment occurs. But the resulting increase in tax receipts does not go to schools, libraries or other local taxing bodies. Instead it is used to pay for improvements.
The city fixed up water and sewer lines, streets and sidewalks and installed benches, old-time streetlights and other amenities to spruce up the look of downtown.
Dozens of property owners have made their own investments, fixing facades and remodeling inside their stores. A former parking lot on Williams Street saw the construction of new businesses, including Genovese’s Restaurant and Laurel & Lace. Infrastructure improvements and streetscaping continue downtown. New water and sewer lines, sidewalks and old-fashioned streetlights are being installed on North Main Street and Railroad Street. The city is spending about $2 million on that work.
Metra also has plans to renovate the downtown Crystal Lake train station.
And, the city continues to add housing. Most new houses going up in Crystal Lake these days range from 2,500 to 3,200 square feet, more than 1,000 square feet larger than the typical new houses of 15 to 20 years ago. Prices today typically range from $230,000 to $290,000, Smith said. Through July 31, the city had issued building permits for 134 homes this year.
The days of large-scale development, when a single builder could put up hundreds of homes at a time, are nearly gone for Crystal Lake, because the large tracts of empty land necessary for such construction are gone.
Smith and Rentzsch said the emphasis these days is shifting to “in-fill” projects, usually a few dozen homes on pockets of undeveloped land.
“Our subdivisions are smaller now,” Smith said. “They’re not those 400- or 500-lot subdivisions that we used to see.”
One such project is Dole Crossing, 22 houses being built near Dole and Crystal Lake Avenues. The developer received building variances from the City Council to allow the homes to be built close to the street with detached garages.
Another is Walkup at the Park, a 130-lot development across from Veteran Acres Park. Prices range from $167,990 to $270,990, said Tom Loftus, president of Reserve One Homes, which is building the development.
Probably the best-known home builder in Crystal Lake has been Residential Development Group, which in 1971 began building Four Colonies, covering 700 acres in the Barlina Road area. Since then the company has put up more than 2,300 houses, town homes and condos.
Its current project is a 166-lot subdivision called Willow’s Edge, at the southwest corner of Four Colonies at Ackman and Huntley Roads.
