The kids in Sugar Grove don’t hesitate to tell their new village president, P. Sean Michels, who knows many of them by name, what they want: a skate park.
“But what we really need,” he says, “is planned, well-thought-out growth.
“The developers are coming in with high-density plans and telling us, `It worked in Naperville,'” says Michels (pronounced “Michaels”). “And we’re telling them that’s not what we want. People are moving here from Naperville because they like our large lots and open spaces.”
Located on the southern edge of Kane County, Sugar Grove is a tiny village, population 3,909.
Until recently, it had grown a few families at a time since it was settled in the 1830s. In fact, it didn’t incorporate until 1957. Its center has a public library, fire station and village hall, but lacks a charming, downtown row of storefronts. Surrounding a handful of its original, 19th Century homes is a neighborhood of 1950s and ’60s ranch homes with yards that are spacious by today’s tract-home standards.
From there, the village extends, spider-like, in every direction, with new-home developments and small business parks here and there among its still-picturesque farms.
The new developments caused Sugar Grove’s population to double from 1990 to 2000. As the village continues to encourage in-fill and to annex surrounding land, Michels projects its population will reach 11,000 by 2020.
The village’s guidebook is its 1998 land-use plan, which limits housing density to no more than three homes per acre. Most of Sugar Grove’s developments with higher densities were approved prior to this plan. An exception is Windsor Pointe, which compensated by including 40 percent open space.
While other Kane County suburbs are groaning with growing pains, Sugar Grove is managing. Building inspector John Kearns isn’t complaining about his increased work load, although residential building permits rose from double-digit numbers in the 1990s to 138 in 2000.
Judging from the first-quarter tallies, he will process twice as many in 2001, at least.
The lines are drawn in the sand to the north, east and south; Sugar Grove has signed boundary agreements with Yorkville, Montgomery, Aurora and North Aurora. Now, most of the remaining no-man’s land is to the west.
The result: Sugar Grove is morphing from a collection of farms into a bedroom community. Other than Waubonsee Community College and the small plants that dot its scattered industrial parks, Sugar Grove doesn’t have any sizable employers, so most of the new-home buyers work elsewhere.
But that’s OK with the residents, says Michels.
“They say they don’t mind driving 10 minutes for it,” he says. “Better to have the open space.”
Sugar Grove is within a half-hour drive of the Fox Valley Center in Aurora, the Randall Road corridor and downtown Naperville.
The village has only a handful of parks, although it is building a new, 26-acre complex that will include a playground, and soccer and baseball fields. But Sugar Grove is surrounded by plenty of golf courses, bicycle trails and three water parks.
Just west of the center of town is the Aurora Municipal Airport. Owned by the City of Aurora, it is outside the village of Sugar Grove but almost completely surrounded by it.
Forest preserves in or near Sugar Grove include Bliss Woods and Hannaford Woods. The village’s name comes from Bliss’ sugar maples, which the Indians tapped to make syrup.
An 1870 map of the area read: “Here may be found some of the wealthiest farmers in the county, and it is generally conceded that as a township it is superior to any in the county.”
Descendants of many of those farmers still work the land here today. But, one by one, they are moving west or giving up farming as developers’ offers become too high to resist.
“You hear farmers say, ‘I’ll never sell,'” reports Michels, who took office in May after running unopposed. “Then, the developers offer them $25,000 an acre and they sell.”
The community suits Vicki and Rick Arnold, who moved here in August from a smaller home in North Aurora.
After shopping for lots all over the Fox Valley, they bought a quarter-acre, wooded lot in Sugar Grove’s Black Walnut Trails and hired Downers Grove-based Blakely Custom Homes LLC to build their 3,000-square-foot, two-story home.
“We wanted to stay in the area because our family lives nearby,” says Vicki Arnold. “But we didn’t want to be in one of the more congested towns.
“After looking around, we found we got a lot more for our money here.”
Parents of three young children, the Arnolds also liked the fact that Sugar Grove is in the Kaneland School District. Their children will attend the district’s grade school in Sugar Grove, then will be bused to its middle and high schools in Maple Park.
The hilly, woodsy Black Walnut Trails, located along Bliss Road, is typical of Sugar Grove’s custom subdivisions, with a mix of traditional, Georgian and Colonial homes, plus a handful of prairie-style homes.
Families like the Arnolds pay about $400,000 for four-bedroom homes here, including the lots. In the same price range is the 90-acre Lakes of Bliss Woods, located across Bliss Road. It was developed by Inland Real Development Corp. in Oak Brook, which sold the 165, quarter-acre lots to a half-dozen custom builders.
One of them, Sugar Grove-based Bill Thill Builders, reports there are 92 lots left here.
At the top of the price ladder is Strafford Woods, a 70-acre neighborhood of sprawling, custom homes in the $700,000-plus range. A few of these lots, mostly 1 1/2-acre, are available for $180,000 to $200,000.
Among Sugar Grove’s more affordable new homes are those at Mallard Point on Prairie Road, being developed by Kenneth James Builders in Northbrook. Base prices for these two-story and ranch homes range from $180,000 to $260,000.
Sales manager Sue Veto says she has 40 out of 161 lots left here, where buyers can choose from 15 plans, then make modifications.
Jim and Diane Holden, a recently retired couple from unincorporated LaSalle County, chose the two-story Fairfield model in Mallard Point. Including upgrades, the price tag of their home was about $283,000.
“We wanted something affordable so we could stay retired,” says Jim Holden. Their spacious lot — almost a half-acre — provides plenty of space for their favorite hobby, gardening.
In the same price range is Windsor Pointe on Galena Road, under construction by Wiseman-Hughes Enterprises in Wheaton.
This 153-acre development includes 281 single-family homes with base prices from $198,900 to $241,900, plus 144 townhomes from $142,900 to $155,900.
Adjacent to Windsor Pointe is Waterford Place, a 20-acre, 96-townhome development in the works by Waterford Homes of La Fox. Ranches and two-story townhomes here will cost $129,990 to $149,990.
Until the models open in June, buyers can check out similar models at Waterford Oaks in Aurora.
On the drawing board are at least two more developments. MAF Developments in Naperville has an option on a 122-acre parcel west of Bliss Road. Neumann Homes in Warrenville has a contract pending on 178 acres on the northeast side of town.
An area to watch is the wedge of land between Galena Boulevard and U.S. Highway 30, east of Illinois Highway 47.
The village’s land-use plan designates this as a “special development area” and is reviewing a developer’s proposal to turn this into a town square.
“We’d like to see this become a combination of residential, office and retail — a pedestrian-oriented area where you could both live and work,” says Tompkins.
As many of the new homes hit the market because their owners are transferred, Sugar Grove’s existing-home market includes a wider range. A three-bedroom, 1960s ranch in town, within walking distance of the library and the elementary school, costs about $180,000.
One- to five-year-old homes in Black Walnut Trails are turning over for $370,000 to $600,000.
Missing from the mix are charming, old fixer-uppers. Sugar Grove has only a few, and they don’t turn over very often.
Real estate taxes in Sugar Grove run about $7,460 a year for a $300,000 house.
A native of the area and graduate of Kaneland High School, Michels says he no longer knows everyone at the village’s two annual parties — the Sugar Grove Corn Boil in July and the Holidays in the Groves in December.
But, he says, Sugar Grove’s growth spurt hasn’t affected its small-town atmosphere.
“This is a place where you do know your neighbors and people wave when you drive by,” says Michels. “I’ve seen a lot of people who grew up here go away to school, then come back here to raise their families. They appreciate it as a safe place where everyone knows everyone else’s kids.”
It may be years before Sugar Grove has a skate park, says Michels. But, in the meantime, he says, Sugar Grove offers its younger newcomers plenty of old-fashioned amenities: wide-open spaces, fishing ponds and star-filled skies at night.
