Cross the Metra platform in Fox River Grove and look east toward Route 14. There's a rectangle of mowed grass where a row of older buildings used to stand, running from Illinois Street to Lincoln Avenue. It's been that way since 2024, long enough that a lot of residents stopped registering it as a construction site and started thinking of it as just... the empty lot. A place you glance at on the way to the train and glance away from just as fast.
That lot has a name now, and a number attached to it, and a target date that's further away than most people probably assume. Meanwhile, two blocks over, the parts of downtown that are actually different to look at right now happened almost quietly, without a Village Board vote or a rezoning ordinance in sight.
What Just Got Approved
The empty lot is officially "Block B," a two acre stretch of downtown the village has been trying to redevelop for more than ten years, according to Village Administrator Derek Soderholm. In April 2026, the planning and zoning commission gave a unanimous thumbs up to a proposal from developers Harlem Irving Companies, Hamilton Partners, and Zeller. In May, the Village Board approved it without discussion. The project, called Fox River Landing, will be five stories tall with roughly 97 apartments and about 6,000 square feet of commercial space, plus a gym, a workspace, a pergola, grills, and a dog run for residents. Harlem Irving Companies President Rick Filler has described the goal as a "boutique hotel" feel with a lively ground-floor social scene.
Village documents put the estimated project cost around $21 million. Developers expect construction to take about 18 months once it starts, with a completion goal of 2028.
Read that last part again. Even now that the approvals are done, Fox River Landing is still roughly two years from anyone actually living there.
One of the commissioners who voted on it, Dan Celske, put the scale of the change in personal terms during the April meeting:
"As a lifelong resident of this town, I can tell you I can think back to the days when I was a kid, when Route 14 was a two-lane road and we had one stop light in town."
That's the context worth sitting with. This isn't a village that's used to five-story anything.
Why the Lot Sat Empty This Long
The slow version of this story matters, because it explains why residents have learned not to trust groundbreaking predictions here.
- October 2022: The village hires a commercial broker to market Block B to developers.
- In the years that follow: Two separate memoranda of understanding with earlier developers fall apart. Neither project comes to fruition.
- 2024: The village demolishes the older buildings facing Route 14, leaving the grassy lot residents see today.
- February 2025: The village announces it has selected Harlem Irving Companies and Hamilton Partners (Zeller joins later) to take the project forward. A village news release calls a fall 2025 groundbreaking "optimistic."
- Fall 2025 comes and goes with no site plan filed.
- April 2026: The formal proposal finally reaches the planning and zoning commission.
- May 2026: The Village Board approves it.
That's roughly seven months of drift between the "optimistic" fall 2025 target and the actual approval, and that's before a single shovel goes into the ground. If you've heard neighbors say "they've been talking about that lot forever," this is why. The village itself needed to restructure its own financing to make the project pencil out. A planning consultant told the Village Board in early 2026 that Block B still qualified as a "blighted area" for tax-increment financing purposes, even sitting empty as grass, because of the condition of the buildings that used to occupy it. The board approved a new downtown TIF district that February specifically to support the project. Soderholm said the new district would perform better financially than leaving Block B in the village's existing TIF.
None of this is unusual for a downtown redevelopment this size. It's just slower than the optimistic version anyone announces at a chamber breakfast.
What's Already Real
While Block B worked through commissions and TIF paperwork, two much smaller changes actually opened their doors.
Patrick Marek grew up in Fox River Grove and credits his art classes at Cary-Grove High School with setting him on this path. In January 2026, he opened a storefront across from the public library. By March 30, he'd moved into a slightly larger space at 412 Lincoln Avenue and held a formal ribbon cutting for All Ways Art Gallery. The gallery's first exhibition featured Midwest contemporary artists including Lucie Van Der Elst, Zor Zor Zor, David Krzeminski, Nick Jackson, and Garrett Luczak, alongside Crystal Lake native Ryan Tippery, whose ink drawings have shown in Paris. All Ways now hosts the Fox River Art Club, which meets the last Sunday of every month at noon and is free to join, plus community yoga on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Marek also rents out working studio space and the gallery itself for private events. One painting he's pitched for a future village mural works in local landmarks, including the Bettendorf Castle and the hot air balloons that used to launch near the Norge ski jump.
That ski jump reference isn't decoration. Norge Ski Club, based here in Fox River Grove, is where Wauconda native Kevin Bickner got his start before becoming the elder statesman of the U.S. ski jumping team at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. It's the kind of detail that only means something if you already live close enough to have driven past the hill.
The other change is Lord of Beers, a tap house the village announced in February 2025 as part of the same downtown push that produced the Block B developer selection.
Here's how the three threads line up against each other right now.
| Project | Announced | Status as of September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Fox River Landing (Block B) | Developer selected Feb. 2025 | Approved May 2026; construction not yet underway; completion targeted for 2028 |
| All Ways Art Gallery | Opened Jan. 2026 | Operating at 412 Lincoln Ave., ribbon cut March 30 |
| Lord of Beers tap house | Announced Feb. 2025 | Confirmed for downtown, opening timeline not yet publicly updated |
The gap in that table is the whole point. One line represents something you can walk into this weekend. Another represents a building whose residents haven't been born into this market yet, so to speak, because leasing won't start until construction wraps in 2028.
A Village Betting on More Than One Block
Block B isn't the only thing on Fox River Grove's plate. The village has spent the past couple of years building 110 single-story rental homes near Route 22 in a community marketed as age-targeted but not age-restricted, each with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a two-car garage. Village leadership has said that project alone should bring in more than $130,000 a year in revenue without adding maintenance costs, since the developer maintains the streets and sidewalks itself. Separately, the village secured a $600,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to renovate Lions Park with new pickleball and tennis courts and an upgraded playground.
None of that is flashy compared to a five-story building across from the train station. But it's consistent with a village that, as of its most recent public statements, remains debt-free and has spent the last two years cutting rather than raising fees, eliminating permit costs for basic building projects in February 2026 and earning national recognition for its financial reporting for a sixth consecutive year in June.
What a Saturday Downtown Actually Looks Like Right Now
If you're spending an afternoon in Fox River Grove this fall, the walk still runs the way it always has. Past the library, past Marek's gallery, past the fenced grass where Block B will eventually rise, down toward the river itself. The Dead End Bar & Grill sits right at the bridge, the kind of small-town tavern where the pizza gets talked about more than the game on the TV. The 100 Lounge, tucked in next door, gets described by regulars as the hidden gem you only find out about from someone who already lives here.
That's the honest read on where this village stands. The five-story building is coming, and it's real enough now that it has a name, a developer, and a financing structure behind it. But if you're measuring change by what's different to look at on your actual Saturday walk, that change already happened in a gallery on Lincoln Avenue and a tap house that hasn't fully opened yet, not in the grass lot everyone still calls empty.
Fox River Grove is a village where two very different kinds of progress move at two very different speeds, and knowing which one you're watching keeps you from being surprised either way.
If you're curious how a project like Fox River Landing might reshape what a home near downtown Fox River Grove is worth, or you're just trying to figure out what your own place looks like against a changing block, Morrison Home Team tracks these northwest suburb shifts closely and is glad to talk through what it means for you.