One Arlington luxury apartments ready for occupancy after $40 million renovation of former hotel
Chicago Tribune | Elizabeth Owens-Schiele | August 6, 2015
After an estimated $40 million in renovations, One Arlington Apartments, the 214-unit upscale apartment complex next to Arlington International Racecourse, is open for business.
Rick Cavenaugh, president and CEO of Stoneleigh Companies, LLC of Barrington, the owner and builder of One Arlington Apartments, 3400 W. Stonegate Blvd., the former site of the Sheraton and Hilton hotels along Euclid Street at Rohlwing Road, said the 13-story building is already 60 percent leased, just over a month after the official opening.
Rent for the upscale apartment units starts at $1,200 to $1,800 for a studio, $1,400-$2,200 for a one bedroom up to $2,300 to $4,500 for two-bedrooms or penthouses with bird’s-eye views of the racetrack.
One Arlington is the first phase of the 32-acre Arlington Downs development with plans to add retail, restaurants and reopen the former CoCo Key Water Resort by the end of next year. The project has been under construction for two years and will not be completed until 2017 but the tax revenue to the village of Arlington Heights is expected to be substantial, although village officials could not release estimates at this time since retail is still being negotiated by developers.
“We’re really excited about the project of Arlington Downs and it will have a great impact on the area,” said Arlington Heights Village Manager Randy Recklaus. “Overall, Arlington Downs and the projected retail will surpass the tax revenue of the former Sheraton campus but Arlington Downs will have a larger net impact on the local economy.”
The village board is very supportive, he said, of the redevelopment of any vacant property in the village.
“We’re pleased with the scope and breadth of the development of this project,” Recklaus added.
Location has been key to the project, Cavenaugh said, with transportation access to nearby Route 53 just steps from the complex. It’s a half-mile walk to the nearby Arlington Park Metra station.
Amenities within each of the units include laminate wood floors in the living room and kitchen, large, wood kitchen cabinets, granite countertops and stainless steel GE appliances, LED lighting in all of the units, carpeting in the bedrooms, tiled tubs with some walk-in showers, walk-in closets and full-size stackable washer/dryer. Most units also have balconies. A new energy-efficient heating and cooling system also keeps energy costs down, Cavenaugh said.
Construction was longer than expected, he said, because all of the plaster ceilings and the entire roof were replaced. In addition,16,000-square-feet of retail space was created on the first floor of the building. The hotel had previously housed 432 hotel rooms, Cavenaugh said, and one hotel room was converted to a studio, two hotel rooms were converted to a one bedroom and three hotel rooms became a two-bedroom apartment. The average unit is approximately 927 square feet, he said.
“The resident profile is younger, 30- to 45-year-olds, mostly professionals, some roommates, with kids just out of school working for local companies,” Cavenaugh said. “The school bus also comes here to pick up kids for the elementary school and several teenagers for the high school.”
There is a 320-car underground parking garage with spots for $85 to $125 a month, key fob security access to the elevators and units and security cameras throughout the building. There’s two sky lounges, a luxurious, 5,000-square-foot rooftop deck with comfy chairs, fire pits and panoramic views, a private party room and fitness studio.
But best of all, Cavenaugh said, is the “man cave” in the basement of the building with a poker table, billiards, foosball, shuffleboard and a golf simulator plus a music recording studio. In addition, there’s a separate D.I.Y. room for projects, storage lockers, bike storage, laundry and a dog wash room for the pet-friendly building for cats and dogs under 75 pounds.
The second phase of the project is planned right next to One Arlington with a proposed 15- to 19-story building of an estimated 443 units, Cavenaugh said, “but I don’t think we’re going to build that high.”
“We won’t start construction until fall 2016,” he said, “we want to wait until the retail gets up to get traffic and vibrancy on the corner.”
David Trandel, developer of Arlington Downs and CEO of Stonestreet partners of Chicago, said he has been leveraging the vibrancy and buzz of One Arlington to attract new retail tenants to the more than 96,000 square feet of available retail space within Arlington Downs.
“Since the tower opened, activity has skyrocketed,” said Trandel who’s currently negotiating 17 retail leases, “so we have a lot of good options right now.”
Some of those options include a “high-end gourmet sandwich shop, a prominent men’s salon, a healthy and fast Mexican food chain, a prominent beef purveyor and a well-known breakfast experience,” Trandel said, explaining he’s restricted by confidentiality agreements in releasing names. These new tenants will line Euclid Avenue on the eastern end of the property, he said, with construction beginning this fall and opening as soon as next summer.
Two restaurants are also planned for the village green in front of the tower, Trandel said. He’s talking with a prominent local operator of a sports bar and Italian bistro to fill those two, 4,500-square-foot restaurant spots.
He’s also negotiating with a large-scale bistro cinema with eight screens for the property, along with a brick oven pizza place, a surgical care facility and a children’s music school.
“We expect to begin construction on the Four Points by Sheraton before the end of the year,” Trandel said of the 161-room hotel with 5,200 square feet of meeting and conference rooms on the northwest corner of property at Rohlwing Road and Salt Creek Lane that he hopes to open by May 2017, “and in the beginning of the year, expansion, update and redevelopment of the water park itself.”
The 46,000-square-foot former CoCo Key Water Resort which closed in 2009 will grow by 10,000 square feet, Trandel said, and include an arcade, laser tag, blacklit golf, rope rides and flow rider, surfer rides.
“We’re updating the water park to be state-of-the-art and geared toward more of a teenager crowd,” Trandel said, acknowledging the former park was geared to toddlers and children under 12. He hopes to have the waterpark updated and reopened by December 2016.