Downtown Palatine – more than just a great place to park

The Brownstones

It’s been a while since we were in downtown Palatine (ok, some of us had never been there), and we were curious just how much of the much-touted downtown redevelopment was smoke. Turns out, Palatine is in the midst of a continuing downtown housing boom that puts lots of suburbs to shame. That’s right, tough guy, Palatine.

The effort started in the late ’90s, when downtown Palatine was as lively as an empty surface parking lot sitting next door to an empty surface parking lot on a frigid February night. Working with Metra, the village was able to build a new parking deck and open those parking lots for development centered around transit.

In just five years, around 1,000 units of new housing were developed “downtown,” a label Palatiners can now utter with a straight face. Commercial has been slower to come, but it’s trickling in, anchored by the likes of Starbucks and the new 15,000-square-foot Durty Nellies bar, restaurant and entertainment complex. The housing projects by and large have been denser and classier than we might have expected. They include developments like The Brownstones, attached masonry rowhouses with grand entrances built right up to the lot line and new “loft” condos — both of which would look at home in Lincoln Park.

Some highlights:

The Hummel Group’s The Providence condominiums, 53 W Slade, features new units with one to three bedrooms, priced from the $270s to the $870s in the heart of downtown, a short walk from the new train station. With its red brick, mansard roof and beaux-arts accents, The Providence Condominiums look at first glance like the renovation of a stately old hotel or courthouse, not new construction. The new units have an urban feel, with nine-foot ceilings, hardwood floors and exposed ductwork.

InterCapital Partners is building 76 townhouses walking distance from downtown at Palatine Commons, just off of Northwest Highway, at Fairview Way. The three-level homes have attached two-car garages, two-story living areas and master suites, priced from the $360s to the $440s. Following the smart growth theme focused around the downtown train station and shops, the project’s motto is “Next to the action, far from the noise.

The Preserve of Palatine and The Benchmark of Palatine by R. Franczak & Associates, have new condos with one to three bedrooms and one or two baths, priced from the $250s. The project, which has a sales center at 132 W. Johnson, is also close to the new Metra station.

For a while there, Palatine could have borrowed the unofficial motto of Des Moines, which built large amounts of parking in an effort to revive its downtown only to find people had no reason to avail themselves of the ample spaces: “Palatine, a great place to park.” These days, the village is giving people more and more reasons to park downtown — and that’s more than many northwest suburbs can boast.

Palatine Townhouses

Palatine Metra station

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