HUNTLEY – Take a look at Huntley’s long-range comprehensive land use plan and imagine a future of change.
The Sun Day did this recently in a discussion with Victor Narusis, the village’s director of business recruitment.
Project yourself to 2030 or 2040:
Think of Route 47 as a Randall Road-style commercial corridor, with more shopping centers, strip malls, more big-box stores, restaurants, upscale boutiques, gas marts, convenience stores, and home centers – stretching from Reed Road on the north to Big Timber Road on the south.
See office buildings along the Jane Addams Tollway occupied by high-tech engineering, manufacturing, and technical research firms, many of them internationally-based.
“In the past year, FYH, a prominent Japanese manufacturer of industrial ball bearings, brought its 40,000-square-foot Western Hemisphere distribution and sales center to our corporate park located on the north side of the tollway, south of Dhamer Road, near the south edge of Sun City,” Narusis said.
“At the same time, Lionheart, a high-tech European engineering firm, also located an office here. These came about because of our contacts with business brokers that represent these firms. The Japanese firm told us they came because of the expansion of the tollway interchange.”
He added, “We are receiving inquiries from businesses all over the world on a daily basis.”
The new strip mall off Regency Square Rd. that houses
Jimmy Johns, Rookies, and Little Caesars is an example of
Huntley’s growth. (Chris La Pelusa|Sun Day Photo)
See Huntley’s south section near the tollway transformed into a series of business parks surrounding a (hopefully) re¬vitalized factory outlet mall. See Huntley’s southern boundary extended southward all the way to Big Timber Road (a land use agreement with the Village of Pingree Grove is set to make this possible in the near future).
Note a complete four-way tollway interchange at Route 47, allowing multi-directional traffic flow into and out of a fast-growing Huntley area.
See a possible Metra station on Kruetzer Road next to the Union Pacific tracks, with commuter trains serving the village directly.
“The existence of the Union Pacific Railroad cutting right through the village, the possibility of a future Metra station and commuter train service coming to the village, the widening of Route 47 through Huntley, the recent approval of a new hospital in the village by Centegra, and the partially completed fiber optic and electrical distribution expansion by ComEd are all factors that are fueling this development,” Narusis said.
Imagine Huntley with a population of 45,000 by 2040, making it possibly the largest municipality in McHenry County. The current population is about 24,000.
Some of this is already happening, and village officials are insisting that much more of it will happen or start happening in the next few years. The recent recession slowed the pace of redevelopment, but didn’t stop it, officials said.
According to Narusis, the lynchpin of this development is full-access expansion of the tollway interchange, which is expected to be finished later this year.
“We believe we have a solid reason to be very optimistic for 2013 and beyond. Inter¬state Partners’ opening of the strip mall next to the Chase Bank on the west side of 47 recently is another encouraging sign, bringing Little Caesar’s, Rookies, Jimmy Johns, and Starbucks here. Walmart’s coming to the Huntley Grove center along with several other businesses was a major development, along with the opening two years ago of the recreational vehicle service and sales center next to the outlet mall along Route 47,” Narusis said.
Mayor Charles Sass put it this way in a village business-development brochure: “We are catching the eye of domes¬tic and international businesses because of our outstanding infrastructure, the new full-access interchange, our business-friendly environment, and our close proximity to two international airports (O’Hare and Midway).”
While all of this business-industrial growth has been happening, Huntley has become one of the fastest-growing residential communities in the Chicago area, fueled primarily by Sun City, starting in 1999. Sun City alone expanded Huntley’s population by almost 10,000 in little more than a decade.
