Work has begun to transform the southern gateway of Arlington Heights, but developer Bradford Allen is already eyeing its next phase of redevelopment.
The Chicago-based real estate firm recently paid $9 million for the long-sought Guitar Center property at 2375 S. Arlington Heights Road, according to Cook County property records.
The 88,575-square-foot site at the tollway exit is where the developer envisions a 10-story, 300-unit apartment building with retail — potentially a grocery store — as part of its multi-phased reshaping of 16 acres at the southeast corner of Arlington Heights and Algonquin roads.
The popular music store is in the middle of a multiyear lease, so Bradford Allen will not have the keys to the building for “quite some time,” according to a spokesman for the developer.
“The acquisition of the Guitar Center property was a strategic addition to our master-planned development,” the spokesman said.
Demolition crews two weeks ago completed teardown of long-shuttered buildings at the corner, including a five-story office building, drive-through bank, Cash for Gold business and Applebee’s restaurant. It’s where Bradford Allen — with architect/co-developer Moceri + Rozsak — plans to break ground this spring on an eight-story, 301-unit apartment building with 25,000 square feet of streetside retail.
Bradford Allen has been trying to get Guitar Center to relocate to the building once constructed, but nothing has been finalized on the potential move, officials say.
The ground-floor commercial space is also being eyed for a possible pizzeria, coffee shop and florist, among other service-oriented retail uses.
The developer is still finalizing the financing for the initial phase mixed-use project ahead of the groundbreaking, the spokesman said.
The $9 million price tag shows what a key acquisition the guitar shop is for the developer’s long-term goals.
In 2019, Bradford Allen paid $2.75 million for the five-story, 153,000-square-foot former Daily Herald building, which is being renovated for adaptive reuse as the ArlingtonMed medical office complex.
The developer paid $1.36 million for the Applebee’s site in 2016, and $1.1 million for the Cash for Gold building in 2014.
The final site being eyed for acquisition — an office complex on Tonne Drive — is where an eight-story, 200-room hotel and 12-story, 300-unit apartment building is envisioned. But talks over that potential acquisition are still in progress, officials said.
Construction on the first phase apartment building is expected to take 19 months. In total, it could take up to eight years to redevelop the entire corner, officials say.