Old High School Site Proposed for 340-Unit Apartment Complex

The site of a former Lutheran high school on 127th Street will be transformed into a 17-building apartment complex under plans pending before the tonight.

Continental Properties Co., of Menomonee Falls, Wis., has proposed the project, which calls for 340 apartment units and a clubhouse on 27 acres at 23756 127th St., east of Route 59.

The first steps are to annex and rezone the site from agricultural to R-4 residential, which the board will review at tonight’s meeting. A site plan and preliminary plat are slated to go before the Plainfield Plan Commission Tuesday night.

The initial plans have the endorsement of village staff and the plan commission, which found the location appropriate for higher-density residential units, village Planner Jonathan Proulx said. The two-story buildings will be 30 feet in height.

Not everyone is in agreement, however. While one resident spoke in favor of the apartment complex at the plan commission meeting on the annexation and rezoning request, seven others raised questions and objections about the traffic generated by so many units and about whether drainage would be sufficient to prevent flooding, Proulx said.

Up until spring 2010, seven of the 20 acres had been used by the , a single-building high school that opened in 2000 but was forced to close due to dwindling enrollment and reduced financial support from area Lutheran churches. The building is now empty and the rest of the property is undeveloped.

Although the entire cost of the project is not known, developers have told village officials they expect to pay about $700,000 annually in property taxes to the government districts in which the property is located, Proulx said.

If the project gets the village board go-ahead, construction could begin in the spring and would take between 16 and 18 months to complete, depending on weather, Proulx said.