Arborteum Project

Mixed Uses Intersect in Northwest Suburbs

by Don Talend

Construction of the Arboretum of South Barrington, an 86-acre, 600,000-sq-ft lifestyle center with 125 tenants, is the next stage of an emerging boom in mixed-use development near Route 59 and Route 72 in Chicago’s northwest suburbs.

In April and May, stores began opening at the upscale shopping center, a cornerstone in the emerging “live-work-play” concept that is driving economic development in the area.

The new shopping center is at the northeast corner of the intersection, which is shared by Poplar Creek Crossing, a 400,000-sq-ft strip mall on the southwest corner that is anchored by a Target store as well as other national retailers and the Chicago area’s first Claim Jumper restaurant. West of Poplar Creek Crossing is Prairie Stone, a 780-acre master-planned development owned by Sears Holdings Corp. that in the past two years has added the 11,000-seat indoor Sears Centre arena and 200,000-sq-ft Cabela’s outdoor recreation store.

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Further development at Prairie Stone is planned during the next couple of years, spearheaded by a 9,000-seat outdoor arena and a 320-room hotel and conference center with indoor/outdoor water park.

The Arboretum, which will hold a grand opening in September, is south of the 400-unit Woods of South Barrington single-family residential development. The housing development and shopping center are on the site of a former tree nursery that was rezoned for commercial development in 1999.

Litigation resulting from the rezoning put development of the area on hold until 2006, when a proposal from Horsham, Pa.-based homebuilder Toll Brothers was approved by the village board. That same year, the village board also approved a proposal from the Jaffe Cos. of Northbook for the shopping center. Among the retail shopping centers it has developed, Jaffe is known for Geneva Commons, a similar 479,000-sq-ft lifestyle center that is 15 mi to the southwest and was completed in 2005.

The nearest thing to an anchor store will be the first L.L. Bean store located outside of the East Coast. The 30,000-sq-ft store will be near the center of the project, south of another key tenant—a 40,000-sq-ft, eight-screen Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinema. The theater, which will feature food delivery to patrons’ seats and a full-service bar and lounge, will be operated by an Australian company that is opening its first U.S. location at the Arboretum.

Other tenants will include Ruth’s Chris Steak House, DSW, Circuit City and Toms-Price Furniture. Nearly half of the space had been leased as of mid-March.

Dealing with Rain, Snow

The Arboretum project has had issues since Park Ridge-based general contractor Ragnar Benson Construction LLC began work in April 2007.

Gregg Berman, project manager with Ragnar, recalls the difficulties caused by severe rainstorms and flooding in August, which created muddy conditions and canceled work for 19 days.

“There was a great deal of standing water,” he says. “You couldn’t get a lift [for masonry units] through the mud and we had ruts that were 2 ft deep. We were pulling trucks out with dozers.”

The construction team managed to locate solid bases to set up some scaffolding for masonry work, exterior insulation and finish systems and some metal framing work.

Receiving truck deliveries for the ironwork as well as for precast walls on the other four buildings proved more difficult.

“We picked our spots and made sure that the stone for the underslabs was compacted properly for our slabs on grade,” Berman says.

A rough winter even by Chicago standards caused other problems.

“Mainly, the problem was frost,” Berman says. “We’ve used two separate techniques to defrost the ground. We’ve built tents and blew hot air to try and defrost certain areas in the slabs that we needed to get poured—mechanical rooms and so forth. We’ve also used a radiant heat system where we’ve got tubes that are filled with hot water and blanketed for certain areas that need to be defrosted.”

To minimize noise and visual impact on surrounding residential areas, a temporary earth berm was constructed on the east side of the site, to be replaced by a permanent landscaped berm when the development is complete. Wetlands to the north of the site will be maintained with a pond, and a bicycle path will also be constructed between the Arboretum development and the Woods of South Barrington.

Individuality with Cohesiveness

When completed, the Arboretum will present itself as a cohesive development yet maintain individual storefronts, says George DeHoven, associate with Dallas-based architect Hodges & Associates.

“To us, the lifestyle retail concept is about linking pedestrians and linking walkways so people can park and walk and have an experience where they’re not just stopping at one store and then leaving,” DeHoven says. To that end, the Arboretum will have wide walkways in front of the stores as well as pedestrian walkways from the parking lot.

The new shopping center will blend in with the mixed-used development boom under way in the region, says Gary Skoog, director of economic development for the Village of Hoffman Estates, where Poplar Creek Crossing and Prairie Stone are located.

“The biggest synergy between the Arboretum and the surrounding development is that people like options, whether it’s shopping or being entertained or looking for housing, and I think all of those options are available in that area,” he says.

Skoog adds that the Arboretum and Prairie Stone are setting a precedent for mixed-use development that is occurring around the intersection.

Prairie Creek, a new outdoor amphitheater owned by Jam Productions, will begin construction this summer and be located close to the site of a former outdoor amphitheater—Poplar Creek—which was closed in 1995. The hotel and water park in the adjacent Prairie Stone, originally envisioned to have 450 rooms and 14 stories, will probably be three or four stories tall due to concerns about noise from Prairie Creek.

Another mixed-use development called Prairie Point will be located on the Prairie Stone site and feature 5,000 sq ft of medical office space, a hotel, an Ashley Furniture store and even a gas station—something currently not available within several miles of the intersection.

A 100-acre parcel on the northwest corner of the intersection is planned for housing and mixed use, and the 24-acre Sutton Crossing parcel located east of the Arboretum will be developed pending completion of the Arboretum project.

Another retail center, Prairie Crossing, will be located at the southeast corner of the intersection and is scheduled to open in the summer.

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