McHenry mulls new guidelines for downtown buildings for height, density, design

Developers coming to McHenry in the future should look to two- or three-story buildings that don’t necessarily have to look historic, but shouldn’t be overly modern either.

Those guidelines were among the suggestions pitched by the McHenry City Council as the board worked through what it wants to see in future development proposals.

“We are looking for direction for our downtown vacant parcels” – information that would be included in information provided to developers when seeking requests for proposals, development director Ross Polerecky told the Council.

The city owns 2¼ acres of vacant land between Route 120, Green Street and Boone Creek, and another 7 acres at the old waste water treatment site along the Fox River. Plans presented by Geneva-based developer Shodeen Group last year that would have redeveloped both sites – and a separate proposal for 1111 N. Green St. – were shot down by the Council as too dense for the downtown.

McHenry also recently approved its Vision 2050 Comprehensive Plan. The plan looks at development throughout McHenry, but also includes a separate plan for downtown.

“The comprehensive plan is the guide, the tool and the vision” for developing and redeveloping McHenry, Jeff Young of HDR said. The Chicago-based company spent more than a year and talked to about 2,000 residents to create the plan.

The next step is creating the city’s unified development ordinance, which would create the legal framework to enforce the comprehensive plan’s goals, Shai Roos said. She is an urban planner at HDR.

McHenry’s comprehensive plan, as approved by the council in November, calls for preserving the city’s “small town character” while encouraging sustainable growth that helps McHenry to be resilient to possible future economic changes and is fiscally sustainable too.

Alderwoman Sue Miller, 7th Ward, started out by asking how tall Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital is, and how tall the next-highest building is, to help determine scale. That would be the McHenry Savings Bank at 353 Bank Drive, at four stories.

Other than those two buildings, “everything here is three stories or less,” and whatever is built in downtown should be in that range, Miller said.

“In my humble opinion, two stories, three stories max, depending on the topography” would be the ideal, she said.

Council members all agreed that regardless of what is built at the wastewater site, it should retain the boat piers around it and include an extension of McHenry’s Riverwalk. Townhomes similar to those now on Waukegan Road, and potentially a small, boutique hotel with a restaurant, were also favored.

“I am not looking at any kind of rental over there,” added Alderman Andy Glab, 2nd Ward. Glab has been vocal in his opposition to additional apartments in the downtown, favoring condo units.

A hotel could be a needed amenity, Roos said, noting she often stays at an area hotel.

“You get a lot of people who come to all of your events,” she said, adding those guests tell her they’d like to stay closer to downtown McHenry instead.

There may be an opportunity for more floors on buildings in the Route 120-Green Street parcel as that slopes down to Boone Creek.

If rentals or condos are included for that area, Council members indicated they want to see 1,000 square feet as the average. But they don’t want box-looking buildings either.

“We don’t want brick and mortar that looks basic. We want creativity,” Glab said.

Whatever happens in the area may be dependent on the results of McHenry’s parking study, Polerecky said.

“If it says we need 700 spaces and we only have 400″ in a proposal, that will not work for the city, he said. “That parking study will dictate a lot of what happens in our downtown.”

The report is expected in early October.