Community Corner

Emerging National Trend Comes To Skokie With Floral Avenue Development


A city neighborhood is moving into downtown Skokie. 

The Floral Avenue development, which has already sold one unit and is expected to be formally approved by the village board next month, will include 15 single family homes and 12 coach homes.

The single families will be narrower than the typical suburban home, and have front porches somewhat close to the street to encourage neighborly interaction, according to John McLinden, president of StreetScape Development, LLC, which is developing the homes. McLinden pioneered a similar development, School Street, in Libertyville in 2010. It will occupy the two blocks north of Skokie's village hall. 

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The homes are inspired by the New Urbanism movement, a national urban planning trend which encourages living in just-big-enough homes in walkable neighborhoods, close to attractions such as public transportation and shopping. 

McLinden explains:

Skokie Patch: In a nutshell, what is the concept behind the development?

McLinden: It’s really of a trend in housing, new urbanism. It started in the 1980s in Seaside, Fla. It was really about creating a close-knit, compact community.

It’s really old urbanism, it’s great neighborhoods, around the world. It’s about people living near an urban center.

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Patch: As opposed to living in subdivisions?

McLinden: Yes. To call downtown Skokie a suburb is not really fair because Skokie is not a cul de sac community. This is pedestrian-friendly, it has all the great aspects of downtown Skokie right there.  It has the train stop, the library, the parks.

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Patch: So in some ways it’s like living in a small town.

McLinden: Yes, and it’s like living in a neighborhood, but it’s still got the cool big-city vibe, with the good restaurants, than maybe a Mayberry.

The front porches are close to the sidewalks, and it creates an opportunity for people on the porches to engage with walkers-by. That’s what’s happening in the Libertyville development. On a nice summer evening, you walk down the street and it’s crazy how many people are on the porches.

Patch: So the porches bring them into their front yards, as opposed to the back yards. 

McLinden: Right. Although there are areas of privacy, too, like your backyard and the roof decks. Roof decks are an option, above the garage.

The show house we did had a roof deck, and people were going crazy over it. I suspect we’ll have many of them.

Patch: Does it cost extra?

McLinden: Yes, but it depends on what plan you have. They’e over the garage.  20' x 20', so like a big back yard.

A lot of people are putting fireplaces on them, so it’s really nice, it’s extending the number of months you can use it. 

Patch: Who are the people behind StreetScape Development? 

McLinden: It’s me, and I have a couple financial partners behind the curtain. My background is mostly urban projects in Chicago, I was involved in development in the city, when lofts came in in the 80s. The bulk of my experience is in that. And new construction in the neighborhoods—Bucktown, Lincoln Park.  

Patch: So you got started in New Urbanism by doing the School Street Development in Libertyville? 

McLinden: The design was 31 attached townhomes, and that project failed (due to the economy around 2008). They were 29 foot lots. 

We said, let’s do detached single family fee-simple houses.

Patch: Why was that so radical?

McLinden: Because the narrowest  lot size in Libertyville is 50 feet wide, and now it’s 60. These houses are four feet apart. It’s crazy.

So we started in 2010 and they sold off the shelf, and we have a success story. So it’s not only what we did, it’s when we did  it.

If you think about Chicago, the typical lot if 25 x 125, so it’s typical in an urban environment, but out in the suburbs, it’s crazy. Crazy good, we like to say.

Patch: How did the Libertyville plan commission respond?

McLinden: Surprised and intrigued. We worked closely with them, gave them great examples of new urbanism architecture. Now they’re talking about new urbanism.

Patch: Why do detached houses instead of attached?

McLinden: Because it’s your own house.  It’s a sense of ownership. Many people wouldn’t buy a townhouse.

I think it’s emotional, too. It’s yours. You don’t have a common wall with someone.

I think every single buyer on School Street (in Libertyville) wouldn’t have bought if they were attached.

School Street started in 2010; 23 homes are sold and occupied, and we’re finishing the last three. They’re sold.

Patch: What's the timeframe for the Floral Avenue development in Skokie? 

McLinden: We just started to market the homes. One is sold. We expect we’ll be starting construction on the first batch of homes in the first quarter. The website went live on Sunday.

So I’d expect we’d have the first wave of homes sold by first quarter.

Patch: Do you think the buildout will take two or three years, as in School Street? 

Yes, I think 3 years is a conservative estimate.

Patch: Will you do future projects like this?

McLinden: We have another project under contract in Steamboat, Colo. And we’re looking at other peojects in the Chicago area, and in West Concord, Mass. And we’ve been approached by a group to do a larger development in Springville, Utah. And we’re looking at more locations in Skokie.

Patch: Where do you live?  

McLinden: I live in Libertyville, and I grew up in Jefferson Park.

Patch: Anything else you'd like to add? 

McLinden: Well, the Floral Avenue development has both single family homes and coach houses.

We think of coach houses as the house behind a mansion, that cool little building. I’m a big fan of urban architecture. Coach houses are sought after in the city; they’re the little house behind the big house.

These are going to be 1,400 square foot houses, arranged around a court yard.

Price might start out at $335,000, you get a ton of value, you get a 2-car attached garage.  They’re 3 stories with the garage on the first floor. They have small yards.

With the price points, they could appeal to young families or empty nesters.

We hear there are a lot of people who want to keep their address in Skokie and spend time in Florida, and this lets them ditch the big house. 

So you have one buyer on Floral Avenue. What did the buyer say about the development, and the prospective buyers?

McLinden: We’re getting a high level of enthusiasm because this kind of thing doesn’t exist, in terms of new construction. They love the idea. We have a series of plans we’ve created but that’s only a starting point.

The first thing we ask a customer is how do you live? We customize the house around how they live, which is very different than most developers. We say, tell us what’s important to you and we’ll customize it to your preferences.

You might say, cooking and how our family gathers around a meal is important.  We want the kitchen to be the center of our house.  So that would inform the plan.

You might say, I’m a writer and I need a quiet space to get away from the action. So I need this kind of a room.

Or, We have visitors coming in from out of town, they need privacy. Or, I need a home office, and I don’t want clients walking through my house.

So real life things, and no one is doing this. The high end home builders are, but no one at this level.

We’ve had major media coverage.  We’ve struck a nerve here. People want to ditch their big house, they want to be inspired by living in a downtown, know their neighbors.

Who buys—families with small kids, single people, retired people?

We have 17 kids getting on the school bus on School Street. We have empty nesters, individuals, people from Wisconsin, and people with families.

Patch: Do you have any cases where someone said we want one house and grandma wants the one down the block?

We have one family that built in a space for the in-law.  With the zoning approval, we can have a separate dwelling unit on the same lot.  It’s the idea of multi-generational living.

One of the families on School Street—Joe’s dad is from the Philippines and he comes and spends three months at a time. So their front room, which looks like a front room, has a convertible  bed, and there’s a full bathroom behind a pocket door, so that’s his suite when he stays.  So it’s a convertible space, it transforms into a guest suite.

Then we have an Indian family that has built in a ton of extra storage space and closets. As it turned out, we learned, it’s because we have a lot of guests, so here’s where we keep the bed linens for them. So it’s interesting in terms of how people design for different cultures. An it’s totally flexible.

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