Arlington Heights planning chief who prepped for Bears and reshaped downtown set to retire

The municipal planner who has shaped downtown Arlington Heights into a mixed-use entertainment destination and worked behind the scenes on the Bears’ now-stalled Arlington Park redevelopment plans will retire from his long-held position at village hall this fall.

Charles Witherington-Perkins is a rare breed in suburban planning and community development circles, having spent nearly 35 years out of a four-decade-long career as department director overseeing the review and permit processes for projects large and small across the Northwest suburb.

The native of Redditch, England, didn’t think he was going to stay in the job that long — much less in this country, after arriving on a track and cross country scholarship at Bradley University in the 1980s — but new opportunities, projects and possibilities kept popping up that he says kept him motivated and interested.

In an interview with the Daily Herald, Perkins, 64, said he was thinking of retiring earlier, but work on the Arlington Park project and an apartment/retail development at the southern gateway of town probably kept him on longer.

He said he expected at least the initial master planning for the Bears’ 326-acre envisioned transformation of the shuttered racetrack — unveiled nearly two years ago — would have occurred by now.

The NFL franchise put the project on hold earlier this year while team officials try to convince legislators to help pay for a new Chicago lakefront stadium — a bid that’s been so far unsuccessful.

“Did I think it would have been a lot further along by now?” Perkins said of the initial Arlington Park plans. “Yes, absolutely. I think everybody thought that. But, you know, again, these projects take a long, long time. So this is just the beginning.”

Still, he said his timeline for retirement was right around now, and he had that in mind before the Bears announced their interest in the sprawling site or before former owner Churchill Downs Inc. announced plans to close the horse racing venue.

Perkins said he believes he and village officials have “set the stage really well” for whatever comes next — whether it’s the Bears coming back, or something else.

In 2021, he recommended — and the village board approved — an overlay zoning district on the property that prohibits 23 uses there, from adult businesses to warehouses. The following year, he helped craft a predevelopment agreement with the Bears that suggests future zoning changes to eventually get a shovel in the ground.

Now, with the Bears having shifted focus to the Chicago lakefront, there aren’t blueprints and traffic studies spread across Perkins’ desk. He, along with Village Manager Randy Recklaus and Mayor Tom Hayes, are waiting to see if the Bears renew their interest in the site.

But no one around village hall has talked specifics about what’s next if the football club doesn’t.

“Every site, there’s always a plan B and a C and a D,” Perkins said. “And it’s finding that right plan and moving forward that’s going to be what the village is going to have to look to if that were to come to fruition. But, you know, nobody knows that at this point.”

While the fate of the Arlington Park property will be influenced by Perkins’ successor — Recklaus began a search for a replacement this month — Perkins’ legacy is in the downtown.

While still working as a planner for Schaumburg in the late 1980s, Perkins and his wife bought a house in Arlington Heights.

“We were looking around and I think I said to my wife, ‘You know, this downtown’s not much, but it’s got potential.’”

His hiring in Arlington Heights in 1990 came three years after approval of a downtown master plan and earlier zoning changes that created a road map for much of what was to come. The first high rises, Dunton Tower and Hancock Square, already were built, but Perkins oversaw the regulatory and land use approvals for the next big wave in the 1990s: Arlington Town Square, Village Green, Metro Lofts, and Parkview Place, adding more than 1,000 residential units and associated commercial spaces.

It all was taking place on either side of the railroad tracks, where a new train station was built, too.

Planners coined a buzz term for it: transit-oriented development.

“How do you build enough density in the downtown area to support what we have now in the Metropolis theater, all the restaurants, the other entertainment uses? They would not be here if you don’t have immediate density supporting them,” Perkins said.

In more recent years, Perkins was the village’s project manager for a new municipal campus that includes village hall, and police and fire department headquarters.

He also was the architect of Arlington Alfresco, the outdoor dining zone — born of the pandemic to help shuttered restaurants — that now has a permanent summertime presence on Vail Avenue and Campbell Street and last year welcomed 320,000 visitors.

Despite some criticism, Perkins credits public-private partnerships and the use of tax increment financing — whereby some property taxes paid to local governments are funneled to the village’s economic development efforts — in spurring the remaking of the downtown. Over the years, he recommended mayors and trustees buy certain properties that could be assembled to entice developer interest.

Despite the downtown changes, Perkins also has been an advocate for the use of building materials and architecture that complement older buildings that remain. But he’s also encouraged more contemporary architecture in other parts of town, like the eight-story, 301-unit apartment building with streetside retail that will be under construction soon on South Arlington Heights Road.

Over his career, Perkins has attended 837 village board meetings, and only has a few left until he steps down in November.

“I’ve always tried to have an extremely high standard on everything that we do from a planning point of view,” Perkins said. “We want the best possible plan developments we can have in the community, and I think that’s why Arlington Heights is such a great example for downtown redevelopment and other development that we’ve done around the community. We’re a model that other communities look to.”