March 02, 2025
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Huntley to purchase land for more parking downtown

By Claire O'Brien
Work continues Wednesday, June 7, 2023, to finish the new building at 11808 Coral St. in Huntley. The building is mixed use with retail and restaurant space on the first floor and residential space on the upper floors.

FILE - Work underway in 2023 to finish the new building at 11808 Coral St. in Huntley. Huntley bought a parcel next door with the intention of making it parking. (Gregory Shaver - gshaver@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver Shaw Media )

Huntley officials are looking to add more parking downtown and are buying some land to do that.

The Village Board on Thursday approved the purchase of property at 11810 Coral St., which is next door to the D.C. Cobb’s that opened its doors in fall 2023.

The property is slightly more than a quarter-acre and contains a house and paved parking lot, according to Huntley documents.

The Village Board passed the $310,000 acquisition without discussion. Village documents indicate that the dollars are coming from the Downtown TIF Fund.

Later Thursday, when the Village Board discussed a draft transportation plan that’s part of the proposed comprehensive plan, village officials said there were 650 parking spaces downtown. Parking can be found in public and private lots along Main, Coral, Dwyer, Woodstock, First and Church streets downtown, according to the draft plan.

According to the Huntley Land Use Plan, new parking should be within close walking distance of future gathering places, according to a draft of the transportation plan.

Parking spaces are not as close to places as some people would like, “so comments are made, but there are numerous parking spaces throughout the downtown,” Deputy Village Manager Lisa Armour said.

Proposed recommendations in the plan in regard to parking include conducting a “comprehensive” downtown parking study, screening lots with landscaping, putting lots behind buildings or requiring people to access them from side streets and encouraging people to bike downtown by promoting the bicycle routes and pathways that links downtown with other surrounding neighborhoods, according to a draft of the plan.

Parking also came up at Tuesday’s State of Huntley address, where officials touted their $5 million investment into downtown parking. Village Manager Dave Johnson said people ask why Huntley doesn’t just build a parking garage. Johnson said a garage would run $50,000 a spot compared with the $9,000 to $10,000 per spot with the surface parking Huntley uses.

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