REGENCY SQUARE CONCEPT REVISITED

HUNTLEY – “You would not select another location in Huntley and you would walk away from Huntley if this spot is not approved?” Trustee Mary Holzkopf asked the Lynd Living representatives after they had finished their presentation.

David Lynd, Lynd Living CEO, didn’t answer the question directly. He did say that “we told the property owners that we would not buy the property on the other side of Route 47.”

Lynd was asked why he was interested in the Regency Square property. He responded, “It’s one of the best suburban multi-family sites I’ve seen in a long time. It provides a suburban property with the urban amenities like we want to provide. The residents would have the ability to walk to Starbucks, Walgreens and other stores and not have to drive across Route 47.”

The trio of Lynd, Tony Tiritili and Peter Bezos represented Lynd Living and made a presentation highlighting the changes that they had made to the proposed site since the February 24 concept review presentation.

The changes included restricted access to the property off of Princeton Drive and Sass Parkway. The Princeton access point would be gated for emergency vehicle access while the new Sass Parkway access would be gated for both residents and emergency vehicles.

The open space west the development, extending to the eastern edge of Sun City’s neighborhood 7, has been extended. Tiritili said that “This now nine-acre preserve is in response to the residents’ comments.”

Tiritili completed his presentation with a video of a recently completed Lynd apartment complex in San Antonio, Texas.

Ten individuals made public comments. The majority of the comments were that the apartments were in the wrong location and that the east of Wal-Mart property was a better site.

Lynd spoke after the public comments and addressed the concerns and complaints made by the speakers.

“When you spend $125 million on a project, it will never be a Class C project or you would lose a lot of money and the project would go bankrupt.” Lynd continued, “The intent and purpose of this project is to keep it a Class A community.”

Trustee Kittel commented that “the video is beautiful and the product is beautiful. You’ve made some nice concessions. I would like to see the sidewalk continued on Princeton. Maybe a stop sign with crosswalk near Starbucks. Also, I would like to see the fence continued west on Sass down to the retention pond.”

Trustee Holzkopf asked “what is the real time response for when a problem is voiced?”

Lynd said that they “require a 24-hour response time to complaints.” He added, “you know that if you don’t take care of your customers, they won’t stay. The reason people live in apartments is that they want convenience. They don’t want to be a maintenance man. If you don’t fix it, they move out. If you have a lot of turnovers on a property, you don’t make any money” he concluded.

He added that their “lease renewal rate is 60% or better.”

Trustee Westberg commented on the attendance at the meeting. He said, “in nine years this is the most meeting attendance we’ve ever seen. It shows that this is important to the residents of the community.”

Westberg stated, “Love the project. It’s beautiful and more than what I imagined.” “But” he continued, “are we raising these buildings in ten years because we’ve got a management problem?”

“There were some comments from the public and I have to listen to them. They put me here, those people sitting behind you, and I have to take that into consideration” he concluded.

Westberg, in referring to on-line comments, “in one case it’s reported that you bought apartments and kicked everybody out and raised the rent.”

Lynd responded, “if things were as bad as those reviews said, then our buildings would be totally empty. We have more than 50,000 tenants and they would move out if those reviews were true.”

Trustee Goldman bluntly said, “the location you chose is a bad location. We were elected to advocate for all residents of Huntley, not just Sun City, all of the residents. We were also elected to think about the economic development of our town. Advocating for the residents is not putting your apartment complex in that location.”

She continued, “I don’t know where you’re going to find 400 people to rent. This is a village of home ownership. I’m also worried about the impact of additional children on the schools.”

“The truth is I would rather have seen you go north, towards Talamore. There’s a lot of rural land open in that area. It would work great in that area, but not where you’ve chosen,” she concluded.

Westberg added, “Regency could be a business park or a commercial area. If you’ve been to Menards on a weekend, the traffic volume is crazy. We’ve been given a brief traffic study and it shows that a multi-family project at Regency would add 1,364 drivers in the area. If it was a shopping center the traffic goes up 5-6-7 times to approximately 12,000 daily trips.”

Mayor Hoeft had only a few comments at the end of the session. He asked Lynd if they had “ever built a Class A property and then sold or flipped it.”

Lynd’s response, “we expect to build this project and then, in 3 to 5 years, sell it. Our equity partners drive that decision at some point.

The Village Board meeting ended without any votes on the Regency Square project since it was only a conceptual review of Lynd’s proposal. The next step, if Lynd choses to proceed, will be an additional meeting with either the Village Planning Commission or another concept review with the Village Board.