Chicagoans who find housing in the city is becoming too pricey are taking a fresh look at Skokie, a familiar suburb where condominium developers have hundreds of new units on the way.
Take, for example, Antonia and Davor Terihaj. The young couple, along with their 9-month-old son, Adrian, moved last February to a two-bedroom condo at Madison Place, a big new residential project in downtown Skokie.
The Terihajs spent two years looking for just the right place. They didn’t want to buy a condo in Chicago because, in Antonia’s opinion, the city is too busy and home prices are beyond their reach.
But the couple didn’t want to live in a far-flung suburb either. They preferred a locale with an urban feel, with sidewalks and nearby shopping. Niles and Des Plaines were possibilities considered by the couple, but they finally settled on Skokie, where Antonia Terihaj grew up.
“I couldn’t think of a place I would rather live,” said Antonia, who returns soon to work part-time at an accounting firm, just a two-minute walk from her condo. “This place is perfect.”
Developers hope other new home buyers agree. Skokie has about 500 new condos, plus a handful of new town homes under way, according to a recent count by village planners.
That sizable total doesn’t even include a huge 700-unit condo complex slated to break ground Dec. 1 just west of the Edens Expressway.
“Skokie is a great place to build,” said Mike Templeton, vice president of marketing at Concord Homes Inc., a Palatine-based builder with plans to construct a 110-unit condo project close to the Old Orchard Shopping Center. “Skokie has a tremendous location.”
Just north of Lincolnwood and west of Evanston, Skokie is situated about 20 minutes from downtown Chicago. Skokie was founded in the late 1800s but underwent its big expansion in the 1950s and 1960s when large tracts of single-family homes were built there. Skokie’s current population is 63,000.
Hoping to revitalize its aging housing stock and commercial districts, especially the downtown, the village has modified its zoning regulations over the course of the last several years. Rules now permit taller mixed-use buildings with residential units along commercial streets.
The strategy, coupled with some financial incentives for builders early on, has helped to attract a handful of big developers.
“We hope to have more projects,” said Tom Thompson, Skokie’s economic development coordinator. “We see this trend continuing for years to come.”
The third building of Norwood Builders’ big Madison Place project opens downtown next month. The Chicago-based company also plans to break ground soon on a new 42-unit condo project with five town homes, called the Residences at 8200, just across the street from Madison Place.
Norwood Builders has more than 200 condo units on the market in a variety of towns, according to sales and marketing director Christine Kutt-Zolt. She said, “Skokie is hands down, the hottest seller.”
So who’s buying all these condos?
Some buyers come from surrounding suburbs. Buyers are also drawn from Skokie itself.
“People who live in Skokie, love Skokie,” said real estate agent Yvonne Antonacci, at Coldwell Banker’s office in Chicago’s Edgebrook office. Other buyers, those who have previously lived in Skokie, want to return.
“Skokie feels very urban. I love that,” said Antonia Terihaj, glad to be home.
Growing up, Antonia was raised in a Catholic household in an almost exclusively Jewish neighborhood. She laughs as she notes that she can still recite portions of the Torah, learned by attending the bar and bat mitzvahs of many friends.
But Skokie has changed over time and now it’s much more diverse, Antonia said. The community offers a stew of cultures she wholeheartedly embraces.
“This is where I want to raise my child,” she said.
Like Antonio Terihaj and her fledgling family, the young home buyers in Skokie often are making a first-time purchase. But the majority of condo buyers are empty-nesters, trading their suburban single-family homes for condos.
“I want to get back to civilization,” said Nola Penn. She’s an empty-nester who currently lives in north suburban Riverwoods, but who has decided to move to Skokie. “The deer out here are lovely, but I am tired of looking at them on my deck.”
Penn recently purchased a condo at the Metropolitan, a building under construction in downtown Skokie at 5001 Oakton St.
She’s planning to retire soon from her job at the U.S. Labor Department and she looks forward to the semi-urban environment Skokie has to offer. She can walk to Oakton Community College and the Skokie Library.
“I don’t have to take my car out to buy milk,” said Penn, drawing a comparison with her current car-dependent existence in a sparsely populated spot.
Penn also picked Skokie because she got a three-bedroom place at a fairly decent price–a rationale echoed by other buyers of new condos in the suburb.
Penn figures she would have paid about $100,000 more for a similar place in nearby Evanston, where a condo building boom also is under way.
“I was not intrigued with the places I saw in Evanston,” said Penn. The Evanston buildings she saw didn’t offer the high-quality features she found in her new Skokie place, such as hardwood floors, a marble master bathroom and soaking tub.
But property prices are creeping up in Skokie, as the town shakes off its outdated image.
“Four years ago, Skokie was a sleeper,” said Norwood Builders’ Kutt-Zolt. “But not anymore.”
The huge new development just west of the expressway, the Woods of Old Orchard, will have penthouse units priced as high as $1.1 million.
Project developer Optima Inc., of Glencoe, characterizes the three-building project as a world-class development, capable of drawing buyers from northern suburbs within a large radius.
“This is the kind of building that is typically only available in downtown Chicago,” said Tod Desmarais, Optima senior vice president.
Buyers at Optima’s Skokie project are comparable to those at the company’s Evanston high-rises, Desmarais said, a mix of young professionals and empty-nesters. Unit prices in both locations are similar too.
“We’re not pushing the envelope on price in Skokie,” he said, noting that the Skokie project has 117 units under contract so far.
Concord Homes has 25 percent of its units under contract at the Siena at Old Orchard. It will have two five-story buildings near the Old Orchard Shopping Center. Units are base-priced from the $240,000s to $590,000s.
Still, skeptics wonder if Skokie is really ready to compete with a hip place like Evanston. They say Skokie has never really been considered part of the elite string of North Shore towns that hug the lake to the east. Skokie doesn’t have snob appeal, and, the skeptics say, Skokie’s condo market may be getting a little ahead of itself.
Village statistics peg the median value of a residential unit (single-family homes and condos) in Skokie at $217,500. The town’s median family income is currently $57,375. The numbers beg the question of whether the town can support higher-priced units.
Earl Ruthman is a real estate broker at Coldwell Banker Leader Realty in Skokie. He said buyers pay a premium for a newly built condo of at least about $60,000, compared to existing units.
According to Ruthman’s figures, taken from the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois, the average closed sale price of an existing two-bedroom condo in Skokie is currently about $214,000. The least expensive new two-bedroom unit listed is priced at about $279,000. But, generally, new two bedroom units in Skokie cost somewhere in the $300,000s, developers say.
“It will be interesting to see what happens,” Ruthman said. He believes current Skokie residents will be resistant to high prices. Buyers of expensive units are more likely to come from other suburbs, or the city, where they have already experienced the sticker shock of high prices.
“What is considered expensive in Skokie is inexpensive in other northern suburbs,” Ruthman said. “The condos are pricey for Skokie, but they look like bargains to outsiders.”
Condo buyer Antonia Terihaj considers her new condo a bargain compared to the price of a Skokie single-family home, now averaging about $369,000.
“A house is out of our price range,” she said. “But this seemed perfect for us.”
