A little more than 45 years ago, Texas-based Centex Development Corp. was looking for a place somewhere in the United States to carve out a planned community. Every street, school, park, industrial and residential area would be carefully laid out. After an exhaustive search, the builder chose a site immediately northwest of O’Hare Airport for its “Exceptional Community.”
The Centex plan divided the town nearly in half, with the residential community to the west and an industrial park closest to the airport. The pairing of the uses, which raises controversy in many suburbs today, proved fortuitous for the suburb that was named Elk Grove Village.
Today, Elk Grove Village is home to 35,000 people as well as more than 3,600 businesses in its 11 square miles. Residents enjoy one of the lowest tax rates in the northwest suburbs, thanks to more than $42 million in revenue collected annually from sales and commercial property taxes.
Mayor Craig Johnson calls the industrial park, “the golden goose” and says it has achieved a position of reverence in the village.
“There’s a saying we’ve had in town for a number of years that says every morning, residents should rise, face the east and bow to the industrial park,” Johnson said. “We owe a lot of our prosperity to it.”
Elk Grove is the second largest employer of people in the state, outside the City of Chicago. Village economic development officer Nancy Carlson said nearly 100,000 employees come to the village each day to work.
“We have four fire stations, 110 firemen and 100 policemen, which are huge numbers for a town our size,” she said, “but we need all these people because of the number that come to work here. And when all those workers go home, our residents still reap the benefits.”
But even as the village watches its last two large residential parcels being built out, officials are plotting ways to keep the town attractive to both businesses and new residents. Using a surplus it has earned from sales taxes and other local revenues, Elk Grove Village is reinventing itself even before obsolescence sets in.
Carlson points to the Industrial Commercial Revitalization Commission and its $30 million of initiatives as the key to the village’s future.
“Back in 1996, our then Village President Dennis Gallitano said, `We’re healthy, we’re not suffering from rundowns. But there are other communities more contemporary out there. If someone is looking to bring a business here, what can we do to improve ourselves in order to compete with these newer communities and make ourselves more attractive?’ That’s how the revitalization process started.”
A commission of eight Elk Grove businessmen was formed. Studies of the village, including traffic issues, were conducted for a year and a consultant, Pete Pointner of Planning Resources Inc. of Wheaton, helped develop both a comprehensive and budgetary plan.
“The Village of Elk Grove did something I found to be unique in my 40 years of working as a planner,” Pointner said. “Instead of solving problems as they occur, they came up with a strategy to avoid them altogether. They didn’t wait until their economic engine was at stake. They realized they needed to provide public and private improvements in order to continue to attract businesses into the district.”
Pointner said the revitalization plan focused on three issues: improvements in infrastructure, adding amenities and promoting improvements in the private sector. To begin, half of the $30 million budget was devoted to transportation issues.
“You have to remember that before we began the revitalization program two years ago, the (industrial) park reflected a 1950s design,” said Pete Vadopalas, assistant to the village manager. “Street widths for turns, size of loading docks, and other issues related to trucking and shipping were different then. Our old design wouldn’t accommodate our future needs.”
Village officials knew their larger neighbor, Schaumburg, might be home to corporate headquarters, but when a company needed warehousing, they’d look to Elk Grove.
“A large percentage of our business is warehouse distribution. If the trucks can’t come in and out, and get to where they have to be, clients may never come,” Carlson said. “It’s the bottom line. It’s distribution. About 90 million pounds of freight comes into the park each day. And with 100,000 people coming to work, you can’t force them to sit in traffic, or they might work elsewhere.”
A second phase of the plan was designed to address landscaping, signage and lighting issues in the park. Village officials knew that trucks frequently got lost, thanks to small, hard-to-read street signs.
“We wanted to make navigating in the park easier, as well as making the lighting more attractive and efficient,” Carlson said.
Finally, a pool of money was established through the help of local banks, which offered low-interest loans so that local businesses might enhance their workspace.
“We’re talking about a `meat and potatoes’ type of thing,” Pointner said. “The village got involved in a grant program and local loans to encourage people to add insulation for energy savings, raising roofs to allow for more stacking, expanding company parking and so forth.”
“We wanted to entice as many businesses as possible to participate in enhancing their facilities,” Carlson added. “The village offered help with designs. We’re hoping this is a `guy next door’ thing and that it’s contagious.”
Clearly, the village’s future depends on keeping the golden goose well fed. The village has attracted 200 new businesses a year for the last 10 years, while losing only half that number annually. Ron Behm, a commercial real estate agent for Colliers, Bennett & Kahnweiler says a considerable amount of business remains internal.
“People come to the city and Elk Grove because of the airport. It’s a big draw since it provides a convenient way for international companies to ship product in and out,” Behm said. “The other reason this works is because the 2,500 acres of industrial park here has created its own marketplace. Paper companies here sell product internally to the printers. The tile and flooring companies sell to the install people. The Mecca of internal business is huge.”
Village officials haven’t forgotten about the community’s residential component. Pointner says plans for the now renamed “business park” were so well received, his firm was used again to develop a residential revitalization plan.
“It’s a $10 million neighborhood enhancement program that plans to tackle every street,” he said. “Again, this is a unique plan you won’t find in many villages — a plan to upgrade every neighborhood in the village.”
Vadopalas said planners conducted public hearings during the last two years and received a number of ideas regarding village improvements. “Basically, we’re looking at aesthetic improvements and streetscape enhancements,” Vadopalas said. “We wanted more landscaping and parkway enhancements in the right of way, including paving-brick crosswalks. People suggested getting rid of the ugly light polls.”
Mayor Johnson said he expects the Village Board to adopt the residential plan before the end of the year, with implementation to begin next summer. A total of 1,100 streetlights and 2,000 street signs will be replaced. At public works sites, barbed wire fence will be replaced with wrought iron.
“We also want to enhance our green space by building what has tentatively been called `Memorial Park,’ which will include statues honoring all five branches of the armed forces. We’re received a commitment from our local VFW, who said they’d help,” Johnson said.
A water feature is also planned for the park.
Elk Grove also has worked to develop its downtown area. The Village Hall, the Park District building, the library and the redeveloped Town Center all flank a parcel known as the Village Green.
“We’ve basically completed the area, except for a few more aesthetic enhancements,” Vadopalas said. “The Town Center area was blighted a few years ago, but we’ve added new shops and some upscale restaurants to it and brought the area back.”
“In the ’50s, people said that communities didn’t have to have a downtown. This was the new thing — it was the suburbs — you put strip malls there,” Carlson said. “I don’t think it worked. Every community I know wants a central focus, so we have created downtown Elk Grove.”
Palatine-based Concord Homes is building a 102-town home project in Elk Grove. Roger Mankedick, the company’s executive vice president, says Elk Grove’s vision for the future is first-rate.
“They’re a unique community with a lot to offer its residents,” Mankedick said. “They’ve come up with plans for their future that you don’t see in a lot of other towns.”
But in the case of Concord’s The Arbor Club, where more than half the units are sold, the future also involves elements of the past.
“The project is a multifamily development that is `rear-loaded,’ with access to garages through an alley or a sort of auto courtyard,” Mankedick said. “The buildings face walk paths that include a trestle, and there’s a sort of neo-traditional feel.”
Despite its exciting future, Carlson believes the village’s success still springs from its roots and the original Centex plan.
“We’ve pretty much adhered to that plan for over 40 years and that’s one of the things that has contributed to our success,” Carlson said. “We don’t have some of the problems of other communities where they kind of grow in spite of themselves without enough foresight.”
ELK GROVE VILLAGE AT A GLANCE
Incorporated: July 17, 1956
Area: 10.9 square miles
Population: 35,000
Location: Adjacent to Chicago’s northwest city limits, 22 miles from Loop
Housing: 8,000 single-family homes; 5,600 multifamily units
Median home value: $225,000
Schools: District 54 and 59 (elementary and junior high) 211 and 214 (high school). Total of 7 public, 1 Catholic elementary, 2 public junior high and 2 public high schools.
Equalized assessed valuation: $1.7 billion
Median income: $64,000
Major employers: Alexian Brothers Medical Center (2,200); Automatic Data Processing (1,000); at least a dozen others at 350 to 700 employees.
