After scrapping a heavily-opposed development proposal in 2019, Crown Community Development formally submitted a new project last month to the village of Sugar Grove, and once again, opposition is mounting. Crown Community Development is a national land development company based in Naperville and, according to its website, one of the largest privately held businesses in the United States. The company owns roughly 760 acres of land around the Interstate 88 and Route 47 interchange in a currently unincorporated area near Sugar Grove.
That land has been the subject of a number of development proposals over the years. The latest, known as The Grove, would be a mixed-use development with significant stretches of residential, commercial and industrial uses as well as a town center and over 200 acres of open space, according to project documents submitted to the village of Sugar Grove. Crown Community Development is asking for the 760 acres to be annexed into the village, subdivided based on its plans and zoned under a special project’s category rather than an existing village category, project documents show.
Village officials have said the development would benefit the village by bringing needed housing stock of various types, new businesses and more open space to the village while also diversifying its tax base. But there would also be significant costs to the village and its residents if the project were approved, since there would be more infrastructure to maintain, more perm.