Objections raised to 760 apartments at Rock Run Crossings in Joliet

The 760 apartments planned for Rock Run Crossings go beyond what the developer previously said it would build.

The Joliet Plan Commission on Thursday voted, 7-1, to recommend approval of Cullinan Properties’ plan, giving their OK to a variance that allows for almost double the apartment density allowed by Joliet.

A school official and a future neighbor of the apartment complex told the commission that Cullinan previously presented plans on a much smaller scale.

“It’s very interesting that this is three times larger than what was discussed at the TIF meetings,” Trevor Moore, executive director of finance for the Troy School District, told the commission.

Troy School District is one of 14 taxing bodies that will forego property taxes from the Rock Run Crossings development for 23 years because of the establishment of a tax increment financing district. The TIF district was approved by the Joliet City Council last week, and the Cullinan plan for 760 apartments was made public a few days later when the Plan Commission agenda came out.

“Maybe they had this plan all along and they just weren’t up front during the TIF process,” Moore said.

Moore said Cullinan had said during the TIF discussions with Troy and other taxing bodies that it would build 260 units and likely add about 10 students to the school district.

The students from the apartment complex will come to the district with virtually no property taxes to support their education from the 309-acre Rock Run Crossings project for 23 years.

The Cullinan plan approved includes stores, restaurants, hotels, entertainment venues and an office complex at Rock Run Crossings, located at Interstates 55 and 80.

The first two construction plans for the 309-acre site presented to the city are the apartments and another for two warehouses, which the Plan Commission approved in an 8-0 vote.

Both proposals will go to the City Council for final approval Oct. 18.

Cheryl Kopczyk, who lives on Rock Run Drive and will be a neighbor of the apartment complex, also said Cullinan low-balled the kind of residential development it would build.

“We were told this would be single-family homes,” Kopczyk said. “Then we were told they would be town houses. Now we’re hearing 760 apartments.”

Jim Testin, development manager for Cullinan, acknowledged the developer wants to build more apartments than it previously suggested.

“This is larger,” Testin told the commission. He also said Cullinan “did not have this in mind when we did the TIF.”

He said the 760-unit apartment plan is based on market conditions.

“Apartments are the direction and the marketplace that is needed in this area,” he told the commission.

The planned unit development that goes to the City Council for approval requires a variance in the density the city allows for residential development.

That density is now 10 units an acre and would rise to 18 units an acre under the variance that Cullinan wants.

Joliet Planning Director, Jim Torri, said city staff supports the variance, in part because the Cullinan plan includes green space, ample parking and amenities that offset the higher density.

“This has green space that the more typical apartments of the past didn’t include,” Torri told the commission.