The owner of a Glen Ellyn strip shopping center will pay the village $1.5 million to acquire part of an old hotel property along Roosevelt Road.
Village trustees have authorized an agreement to sell four of the seven parcels, about 60% of the overall property, to a commercial developer. Earlier this year, the village board agreed to sell the three other parcels for $1.75 million to Chicago-based Full Circle Communities, a nonprofit developer planning to create up to 42 units of affordable housing on the west side of the site.
The latest deal caps a process that began nearly three years ago when Glen Ellyn trustees moved to take control of the deteriorating property, occupied by a cluster of hotel buildings and split by Exmoor Avenue. Collectively, the buildings were once known as the Four Seasons Motel. The hotels were later rebranded as a Budgetel Inn and Suites and an America’s Best Value Inn.
“Certainly, it’s taken longer than any of us anticipated, but I feel very positive about the outcome,” Trustee Kelley Kalinich said. “And I think we have two great partners that we’re going to be working with.”
The village paid $2.85 million to purchase the property in January 2022. Trustees hired a consultant to recruit potential developers, commissioned a market assessment and sought resident input. Some raised objections to the affordable housing proposal, while advocates said it would address an “acute need” in Glen Ellyn.
Officials said the result was a compromise.
“We feel confident that we will recover our acquisition costs with the sale of this property to these two entities,” Assistant Village Manager Emily Rodman said.
Full Circle aims to develop the smaller portion of the site — just under an acre — west of Exmoor Avenue. At least 30% of the units would become permanent supportive housing for people with disabilities.
The commercial developer currently has no specific proposal for the eastern parcels. However, officials say the pending buyer has indicated a desire to proceed with a development that would align with its existing commercial property — a nearby strip mall with a Starbucks, Chipotle, Crumbl Cookies and other national chain businesses.
“I’m confident that it’ll be very exciting and a good addition to the community,” Village President Mark Senak said.
That developer, an entity called Go Glen Ellyn Two, LLC, also will be responsible for the cost of demolishing a building on the site over the next year. Under the terms of the agreement with the village, the developer has a month after closing on the purchase to complete a permit application to take down the building.
That is “very important to the village in order to eliminate that blighted structure” and potential safety concerns, Rodman said.
Meanwhile, Full Circle must seek zoning entitlements from the village before the affordable housing project becomes a reality.
“There will be ample opportunity for public input as we continue through the entitlement process with them,” Rodman said. “To date, they have not formally submitted any of their zoning applications, although we anticipate those will come in probably this summer, late June, maybe early July.”
Full Circle also converted Elgin’s historic Larkin Center into an affordable housing complex.