Senior living developer returns to Highland
Community forum Wednesday to discuss new plans
The developers of a proposed senior-living complex on farmland next to Strack and Van Til’s on Cline Avenue in Highland will once again make their case for the project.
Davenport, Iowa-based Russell Group will host a community forum at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Lincoln Center to present revised plans for the center, said James Wieser, attorney for the project.
The controversial project was shelved at a Nov. 20 Plan Commission meeting, with the stipulation that Russell Group could come back with new plans before having to wait a year to start the process again.
The developers took to heart some of the suggestions residents made during the previous process, such as making exterior “more aesthetically pleasing,” Wieser said. There will also be handouts for everyone attending the presentation so they get the full picture of what the project hopes to bring to Highland.
“I think it’s a great project from a planning perspective, and we want as many people in the community as we can get to come out and see what we’ve changed and answer as many questions as they have,” Wieser said.
The project — which hinges on the Plan Commission and ultimately the Town Council approving a special use variance for the R-1A designated parcel – originally comprised at least 70 independent living apartme nts with full kitchens, in-unit laundry and garages, 50 to 60 assisted-living apartments with kitchenettes and laundry, and a memory-care unit with 18 to 20 apartments with programming for those with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementiarelated illnesses. Other amenities would include multiple dining options with meals prepared by an on-site chef, game rooms, a library, general store, salon and a large wellness center with fitness equipment and offering daily fitness classes.
Council President Mark Schocke, who was on the Plan Commission during the project’s first goaround, opposed it because of its four-story size, potential drainage issues and a $3 million TIF district that was alleged to be part of the center’s financing but that Wieser said never came to pass.
Schocke said Thursday he still opposes the project.
“I am not in favor of bonding for $3 million in TIF money for the benefit of a private multi-million dollar corporation at the cost of taxpayer dollars,”
Schocke said in an email Thursday. “The benefit of any such TIF spending for the average Highland resident is marginal at best; it appears to be using middle class Highland residents’ tax money to subsidize millionaires. For these reasons, and others, I still oppose the project.”
At a special meeting in October, the Redevelopment Commission and Town Council approved 5-0, an agreement that sets forth stipulations under which the Russell Group, the property owner and the town would proceed with the project.
Among those contingencies set forth in the agreement are the town creating a physical road out of the so-named “Ernie Strack Drive” rear entrance to the Strack and Van Til grocery store off Kleinman Road; the store and its tenants disconnecting from the Town of Griffith’s sanitary lines and put onto Highland’s sanitary lines; and parking improvements to the store’s parking lot that won’t interfere with other tenants in the complex.
Additionally, a 40-foot tract of land owned by relatives of the Scheeringa family not living on the farm property would be acquired as a right-of-way to the new road. If the family decided to not sell the tract of land, the town could go after it as eminent domain per the agreement, but since the town has no reason to believe the family would object to selling the land, adding the eminent domain clause was a formality.
Wieser said in November that if Russell Group couldn’t convince Highland to build the project, he’d had informal conversations with other nearby municipalities that had expressed interest in it.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the PostTribune.