Business View Magazine | March 2020

375 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MARCH 2020 now called Prairie Stone, included 200 acres dedicated to Sears Holdings. Within a year, Ameritech also located its new headquarters in the Village. In total, nearly 14,000 corporate office jobs were created in the community in this short period. “We’re a typical, post-WWII suburban community,” says Norris, “but we’re far enough out from Chicago to still have a lot of greenfield development going on. At the same time, parts of the community that date back to the 1950s and early ‘60s are undergoing a renaissance. I’ve been Village Manager since 1998, and when I started, there weren’t a lot of businesses in the Prairie Stone Business Park. The Village Board and staff put an emphasis on diversifying that park from its beginnings as a first-class office business park, to more of a commercial, mixed- use development. We started actively recruiting retail and hospitality, adding Cabelas and a full-service Marriott hotel. In the early 2000s, we partnered with Sears and a private developer on the Sears Center Arena – a full-service sports and entertainment venue that can seat up to 12,000. We’ve since added hotels, restaurants, and a 400,000-sq. ft. regional shopping center adjacent to that property. We have significant opportunities for growth and advancement in both the commercial and residential sectors.” Kevin Kramer, Director of Economic Development, adds, “Many areas of the Prairie Stone Business Park are shovel ready; the utilities, the curb cuts, the wetlands, and stormwater infrastructure are already in place. We still have about 1,000 acres of greenfield to be developed, and we’re only 20 minutes from O’Hare Airport. No other community in this area can say that.” It’s an exciting time for development in Hoffman Estates. While Ameritech/AT&T vacated their corporate campus in the wake of the Great Recession, in 2019, Somerset Development purchased the 150-acre property, located just north of the I-90 Jane Addams Memorial Tollway. Somerset is redeveloping the 1.6 million square feet of office space, distributed between three buildings built in the early 1990s, and the surrounding property into what it calls Bell Works Chicagoland, a mixed-use “Metroburb.” A Metroburb provides a slice of urbanity in a great suburban location. Bell Works will feature office and co-working space, as well as retail and service businesses open to the general public within the main building. The Metroburb will feature amenities such as a conference center, special event and public gathering spaces, and a full fitness experience. Plans for the development also include townhouses, apartments and a hotel, matching residents with the businesses and services they need. Somerset is a proven developer, having already successfully transformed the two million square foot Bell Labs facility in Holmdel, New Jersey into the original Bell Works Metroburb. Kramer sings the praises of the project: “When that site was home to one company, you needed a meeting or a badge to get in. Now, once it V I LLAGE OF HOFFMAN ESTATES , I LL INOI S While the transformation of Bell Works will take around 7 years to complete, this rendering of the front door of the Metroburb will be ready sooner as construction is now underway on the office, retail and specialty features, like the Solarium event space pictured on the top floor.