The former Sherman Hospital campus in Elgin is in the hands of a lending company this week after its owner, a two-time convicted felon, agreed to relinquish control of the 14-acre property during a foreclosure proceeding, Kane County records show.
Consisting of a 254,000-square-foot hospital building, parking lot and open land at 934 Center St., the campus had been sold to Chicago-based Freedom Development Group in 2019 after Advocate Health Care moved the hospital to a new location on Randall Road.
Kane County court records show that the property went into foreclosure in March and no property taxes were paid this year.
A Kane County judge signed off on an order this week allowing Westridge Lending LLC to take over the property and close the foreclosure case. Westridge is listed as the owner on the deed dated Aug. 8 in the county’s Recorder’s office.
Westridge’s plans for the site are not known. An attorney for the company declined to comment.
Among the defendants listed in the foreclosure were John Thomas, founder of Freedom Development Group, and 901 Center Street Holdings LLC. Court records show that at one point, Thomas couldn’t be located for summons service.
An attorney listed in court records representing Thomas declined to comment.
Thomas spent two years in federal prison on a 2015 conviction involving the theft of $375,000 in taxpayer money earmarked for a Riverdale marina development. He was convicted of fraud in New York under a different name in the early 2000s, according to a Chicago Tribune story.
Thomas was a federal informant and wore a wire to record comments from former business associate Antoin “Tony” Rezko involving the investigation of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
When Thomas’s company purchased the property, he said it would be used for residential or senior housing development or could be sold. However, the building has remained vacant and the open land undeveloped.
The state of Illinois and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced in 2020 that the former hospital would be converted into a temporary overflow facility to ease the COVID-19 case strain on area hospitals. Despite work that went into converting the building for that use, it was never occupied.
Thomas’ company received a $394,000 federal Paycheck Protection Program loan in April 2020.
Freedom Development group is listed as not in good standing with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Department of Business Services. The phone number for its Chicago office was disconnected.
Homeowners in the northeast neighborhood have speculated on what is happening with the property and what should happen.
“I think we should work together as a neighborhood and a community to see what should go there,” said Elgin City Councilwoman Carol Rauschenberger, who lives in the neighborhood.
The existing building could be torn down and the property used for housing, Rauschenberger said. The city should determine what the best use is and then market it to developers, she said.
“My best solution would be housing that matches the neighborhood architecture, whether it’s low- to middle-income or elderly housing,” she said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
