The Lakota Group

Thank you to the hundreds of residents who participated in focus groups, surveys, and workshops! A wrap up of the visioning process with resulting concepts for development of a town center will be presented to the Plan Commission on March 21, 2024, and to the Village Board on April 10, 2024. The Village Board will determine what, if any, future steps it may wish to take.

Homer Glen wants a place – a center where residents can gather, enjoy a sense of community, and support local businesses. The Village of Homer Glen has engaged The Lakota Group, an urban planning and design firm based in Chicago, to embark on the visioning process with residents for a new town center.

Homer Glen has transitioned from an agricultural community to a suburb over the last 20 years. Unlike other communities, growth did not occur around a train station or a traditional downtown. Retail amenities are mostly located in shopping centers or big-box developments relying on auto use for access. Homer Glen seeks to define its own niche and retain its unique character in planning for the future.

The Homer Glen Town Center Visioning process will identify the best locations and concepts for a new town center through extensive engagement of residents and key stakeholders and a critical assessment of the market and development feasibility. The final plan will capture the community’s overall vision for a new town center and provide the Village with a roadmap to developing the right place for Homer Glen.

Goals for the Homer Glen Town Center Visioning:

Craft a robust outreach program to engage a wide range of stakeholders and residents to ensure the town center vision reflects the community’s desires.
Identify who the town center will serve – a regional market or a local market – and what components make up a town center.
Determine the location options, scale, architectural feel, and development scenarios with the greatest likelihood of market and financial success.
Develop a clear path forward with strategies, budgeting, and phasing to achieve the overall vision.

The Village of Homer Glen hosted a community workshop Tuesday, January 30^th from 6-8pm at Village Hall in the Community Room. Thank you for joining us to learn about what’s been done to date in the visioning process and share thoughts on what kind of town center is right for Homer Glen.

Sign up through the registration pop-up on this page or the contact section below to receive project update emails and information about upcoming opportunities to stay involved!

Phase 1 – Engage & Assess (February 2023 – May 2023)

The focus of Phase 1 is to establish a dynamic planning process that involves community stakeholders, residents, business leaders, developers, Village elected leaders, and Village staff. The goal is to understand what Homer Glen residents want and to evaluate the conditions of potential development sites. The information and maps produced during this phase will define each site’s constraints, weaknesses, strengths, and opportunities.

Phase 2 – Market Assessments (June 2023 – August 2023)

During this phase, the Team will conduct in-depth market research on each of the proposed new town center use components. The phase will culminate with the creation of a Market Assessment and Strategy Report to provide analysis and direction for new town center concept development.

Phase 3 – Concept Development & Plan (September 2023 – March 2024)

In Phase 3, the Team will envision the proposed development through concept plans and renderings for the new town center. The concepts will include massing and scale, retail mix, commercial and housing strategies, and phasing opportunities. Development strategies will support the final concept plans to spur development of Homer Glen’s New Town Center.

Phase 1 Engagement Summary provides a collection of thoughts and ideas on what a town center means to our residents.

Phase 2 Market Assessment, provides an analysis of Homer Glen’s consumer and retail economies and an assessment of potential town center locations. It considers the preferences residents expressed through surveys, focus groups, and a community workshop held in spring 2023. It also summarizes economic realities and developer considerations.

Here are a few highlights from the report:

A successful town center depends on traditional design elements like compactness and walkability. It will also require a mix of uses including housing, retail, and public or civic spaces.
Homer Glen households provide an affluent market. At the same time, the Village population has not grown significantly in the last 20 years and the local consumer base is small.
Demographic shifts will influence housing preferences in coming years. Older residents will seek to downsize and younger residents are likely to want smaller homes, too.
The housing market in Homer Glen remains strong, with recent experience showing higher demand for small-lot homes. Current real estate conditions indicate that housing will need to anchor a town center and drive the development pro forma, with light retail uses provided as an amenity.
With the rapid rise in the costs of building materials, construction labor, and interest rates, the Village will need to provide some development incentives.
Developers place a high value on regulatory predictability – the assurance that their proposal will be approved if it aligns with the Village’s vision. One of the most important outcomes of this work will be for the Village to entice the development community with a consensus concept.

The next phase will envision conceptual designs for the Town Center. The project steering committee and the Village Board have concluded that concepts will focus on a location across 151st Street from Village Hall. Please join the next community workshop on November 28 at 6:00 PM at Village Hall to provide input on preliminary concepts.

Meet the Team!

The Lakota Group

Vetter Consulting Enterprises LLC