240 townhomes is latest proposal for vacant Solo Cup land in Highland Park

An ambitious — and massive — plan to turn the former Solo Cup property at 1700 Deerfield Road into 240 townhouses, complete with a clubhouse, pool, and a large buffer of wetlands greenery to block it from its residential neighbors, got its first review April 1 from members of Highland Park’s Plan and Design Commission.  

Neither commissioners nor members of the audience at the former Highland Park Country Club voiced opposition to the proposal during the hearing; however, while no one pushed back against the general concept that The Habitat Company’s proposed, listeners worried about its density. 

As proposed, the townhouses would be built as two- and three-bedroom units, constructed in 50 “blocks” of between three and six townhouses, and each with two-car garages, providing 480 parking spaces. A further 170 surface parking spaces are proposed toward the property’s west side. The plan would provide more parking for the Highland Park Police Department, which is adjacent to the property, according to the Habitat request.

In addition to the clubhouse and pool Habitat wants to build near the property’s center, the developer plans two access points: one off Deerfield Road and a second that would be created from an existing access road at the property’s northeast corner. Habitat would create a left turn lane on northbound Old Deerfield Road to Richfield Road. 

The company is asking for approval of a planned unit development for the property; for rezoning from light industrial to residential; and for relief from zoning setback, height and between-building distance limitations, among others.

Katie Jahnke-Dale, the developer’s attorney, said the rezoning and PUD were planned in part to assure neighbors that there would be no further residential development at the property.  

Neighbors wanted to know how an influx of families might affect Highland Park schools. Jahnke-Dale, who said Habitat had held a “positive” meeting with neighbors several months ago, said it has contracted a fiscal study to analyze the project’s impact on area school districts. 

Although neighbors and commissioners liked the roughly 8 acres of wetlands buffer to the west, they wanted to know why plans showed less green space in the layout’s interior and asked for more on the interior of the project’s acreage. 

“This is a property that does appear to be a sort of enclave,” Commission Chairwoman Karen Moore said. “Anything you could do to better integrate it with the surrounding neighborhoods would be applauded.”

Some questioned what appeared to be a lack of pedestrian and bicyclist access through the property. 

“It really does seem designed for cars and not for people or cyclists,” Commissioner Kristin Ihnchak said. “I’d like to see more of a grid design to make it more walkable. If there is an opportunity to integrate a trail in the preserve part of the property, that would be very good.” 

When commissioners and audience members asked about the project’s environmental impact, Jason Warren, an environmental project manager working with Habitat on the project, called the property “environmentally sensitive.” He said the goal is to receive a so-called “no further remediation” letter from the Illinois EPA.

Both audience members and commissioners asked, several times, whether the townhouses would be rentals or offered for sale and what prices the units would command if they were to go on the market. Jahnke-Dale repeatedly said Habitat would make those decisions based on what they think the housing market would allow.

“How can you spend millions of dollars and not know how much you’re going to charge?” Moore asked.

Some people at the meeting disliked the design of the townhouses, all of them three stories tall, with two-car garages at the front or rear of each unit: “I think they’re really ugly and unimaginative, with a real fake feel, like little boxes made of ticky-tacky,” neighbor Stephanie Kerch said.

Some commissioners asked about the developer’s request to rezone the property but Joel Fontane, the city’s director of community development, said the change requested by Habitat wasn’t unusual. 

The April 1 hearing marked the start of the latest effort to build something on the property, which lies just west of Route 41 and south of Deerfield Road. It’s bounded by residential neighborhoods — to the west just off Ridge Road, and to the south, starting with Grove Avenue.

Longtime owner Solo Cup vacated in 2008 and its existing buildings were demolished between 2010 and 2015. One residential construction proposal aired in 2018 went nowhere. The property was then bought by the Red Cup Land Company, which in 2023 unsuccessfully tried to win approval to build two industrial warehouses on the site. When it brought the proposal to the commission in 2023, neighbors opposed the plan and commissioners also criticized it; that plan never went forward. 

The commission took no action at the hearing. Instead, it will reconvene the special meeting May 20 at the same location. Jahnke-Dale said the development team would bring further studies to the session, to try to answer some of the questions aired that night.

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