New plan for former U.S. Music site in Mundelein
A long-vacant guitar factory in Mundelein could be replaced by townhouses, apartments and a residential care facility for senior citizens.
Developers want to knock down the former U.S. Music Corp. building at 444 E. Courtland St. and erect new buildings on the 15-acre site as part of the plan, which was publicly unveiled at Monday night's village board meeting.
A group called Springbank Capital Advisors is pushing the plan, dubbed SB Mundelein Station. Springbank purchased the site in December 2015 and began talks with the village about redevelopment in March 2016, Springbank representative Geoff Adaire told the village board.
The board took no action on the plan.
The 13,000-square-foot building has stood vacant since U.S. Music relocated to Buffalo Grove about six years ago. It's fallen into such "severe disrepair" that re-use of the building is impractical, according to a village memo.
Sixty-eight townhouses and 333 apartments in four-and five-story buildings are proposed, along with a 120-unit care facility.
In addition to the former guitar factory, the land is home to a stretch of the Seavey drainage ditch, which helps drain the Indian Creek watershed. To create more room for development, the ditch would be rerouted and taken underground with pipes, Adaire said.
"You can't build on top of a creek," he said.
The necessary pre-construction site work could cost $3.9 million, Adaire said. The developers want money from the village to help pay for some of the improvements and for the village to fund some of the work itself.
That includes $1 million to reroute the Seavey ditch.
Village officials noted Mundelein typically doesn't pay developers up front for construction improvements.
"Usually we will reimburse," Trustee Dawn Abernathy said. "I certainly will not gamble with our taxpayers' money."
Trustees Holly Kim and Ray Semple raised concerns about flooding, too.
If the project moves forward, the developers want to knock down the building in April, relocate the creek and lay roads this fall and begin building in 2018.