Journal & Topics Media Group

Year In Review: Arlington Heights


The future of Arlington Heights began to take shape in 2021. Ever since the Bears announced their intention to purchase Arlington Park, there has been an unstoppable excitement around how the project will play out and the chance for suburbanites to forgo the long trip into the city to see their favorite team. Meanwhile, the village and business community replaced the Mane Event with the new end-of-summer Harmony Fest and started to explore how to turn the popular Arlington Al Fresco into a permanent program. With so much change going on, it’s worth taking a moment to review the biggest moments from 2021. In no particular order, here are the Journal’s top stories of the year from Arlington Heights.

Arlington International Racecourse overlay zone to be considered by Arlington Heights officials for future redevelopment.

Bears Buying Arlington Park

The Chicago Bears may be struggling to score on the field, but the football team brought a big win to Arlington Heights when they signed an agreement to purchase Arlington Park in September. The move ended years of speculation about the future of the historic racetrack and fit the village’s goal of attracting a development for the 326-acre site that would act as a regional destination. Actual work on the site is still years away, but the village has been preparing for this moment for several years. As the bidding process ramped up over the summer, the village board created an overlay zone district for the Arlington Park property with the goal of ensuring any future construction would be part of a comprehensive project rather than a series of smaller developments. While no plans have been submitted yet, the early indication is that the Bears and the McCaskey family share that vision for a large-scale development centered around a brand-new stadium.

At Arlington International Racecourse on Sept. 25, 2021. The ninth and final race heads towards the finish line on Saturday. Sister Ruler, ridden by Constantino Roman, is in front just before the finish line, taking first place in the race named The Luxembourg. (Journal file photo)

Saying Goodbye

For 94-years, Arlington Park has been one of the premier thoroughbred racing tracks in the United States, hosting countless tight finishes and famed horses such as Secretariat. That ended on Sept. 25 when the racecourse held its final event. The future of the track had been in doubt for many years as the Illinois horse racing industry wound down and owner Churchill Downs invested in Rivers Casino in nearby Des Plaines, ending interest in bringing slot machines to the track. Still, Arlington Park went out with a big celebration as locals flocked to the track one last time and enjoyed a fireworks display befitting of one of the grandest venues in sports.

UAL Moves To AH

The Bears weren’t the only major organization eyeing Arlington Heights in 2021. In early December, United Airlines announced plans to move 900 employees out of Willis Tower in downtown Chicago to a newly renovated building at 1501 W. Shure Dr., Arlington Heights. The move made United Airlines one of the village’s five largest employers and those workers are expected to contribute $3.8 billion annually to the local economy. The nearly 200,000-square-foot building was previously part of the Motorola campus and will serve as the airline’s primary network operations center.

Karen Friedman (left, front), of Arlington Heights, carries the Progress Pride Flag with her daughter Sydney, 15, (right) coming out of North School Park, marching to Arlington Heights Village Hall protesting a recent village board vote to limit what flags could fly at village hall. (Journal file photo)

Flag Rule

A decision to formalize an unwritten policy of not raising specialty flags on village property was seen by many in the LGBTQ+ community as a message that their voices were less important. The issue arose over the summer when a group requested to fly a rainbow patterned Pride on the village’s flag pole outside village hall during Pride Month, which occurs in June. The decision to deny the request sparked an unusually contentious debate among village trustees. Some, including Mayor Tom Hayes, believed that raising specialty flags would mark the flag pole as a public form and force the village to allow for all kinds of flags, regardless of the values they represent. Those on the other side of the debate said the Pride flag was an important symbol that let those ostracized by parts of the community know that they were welcomed in Arlington Heights. The 5-3 vote in favor of limiting the allowed flags prompted the League of Women Voters to organize a protest march from North School Park to Arlington Heights Village Hall.

Arlington Heights resident and community activist Karen Thomas, Prospect high School senior Ashlyn Gadson and local League of Women Voters President Heidi Graham after the Jan. 15 press conference regarding the village diversity and inclusion program. (Journal file photo)

Improving Diversity Equity Inclusion

Over the last several years, residents and local officials have pushed Arlington Heights to take a more active role in ensuring the village is a welcoming place for everyone. Residents have questioned the village board on a range of related topics, from the lack of people of color in the Arlington Heights Police Department to the need for more affordable housing units to be included in proposed developments. While village officials frequently agreed that more should be done, in 2021 they cemented diversity as a core value of Arlington Heights. In March, trustees approved a position statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion that serves as a guide for village officials and the community to foster an inclusive workforce and promote an environment where all individuals feel included, valued, and respected. The statement builds on a study the village issued from the Kaleidoscope Group that made 15 recommendations for how Arlington Heights could better respond to the needs and issues of its increasingly diverse population. Those recommendations touched on a range of issues impacting minority citizens, including village hiring procedures, workplace behavior, and how to address instances when residents call the police to report members of minority ethnic groups, even when those being reported have done nothing wrong.

Harmony Fest lines Campbell Street in downtown Arlington Heights Oct. 2. (Journal photo)

First Ever Harmony Fest

The Mane Event and Taste of Arlington used to celebrate the height of the racing season in Arlington Heights, but both events were casualties of COVID-19 in 2020. With Arlington Park set to close at the end of the 2021 racing season, it was unclear whether the popular events would ever return. Instead, the village and Arlington Heights Chamber of Commerce worked together to create a new event that marked the end of summer, Harmony Fest. Taking place Oct. 1-2 in downtown Arlington Heights, the event featured tents filled with representatives from more than 50 local businesses as well as live music and family activities. To make way for Harmony Fest, Arlington Al Fresco, the downtown outdoor dining district, ended a few weeks earlier this year. Some were concerned that reducing the timeline for outdoor dining would harm local restaurants, especially as the COVID-19 delta variant began to surge, but the village and business leaders compromised on the date so that the event would act as an endcap to Arlington Al Fresco rather than holding it earlier in September, which would have forced restaurants to tear down and then set up their outdoor dining areas again.

Young thrill seekers file their way toward a carnival ride at the Frontier Days “Carnival Jamboree” at Rec Park in Arlington Heights. (Journal file photo)

Frontier Days Returns

For a few months it looked like Frontier Days would be cancelled in 2021 due to COVID-19 again. In March, the Frontier Days Board of Directors announced on social media that it decided to postpone the annual event, which takes place around the Fourth of July at Recreation Park. However, as the number of individuals getting vaccinated rose and COVID-19 restrictions eased, organizers reversed course and held a scaled-back version of the festival. There were no big musical acts as in past years, but the popular carnival did return, giving residents a taste of pre-COVID normalcy.

Artist’s rendering from April 19, 2021 village board meeting shows newly planned layout for Arlington 425 development, lessening height of structure at right to a four-story parking deck, while slightly increasing stories on second and third buildings on site.

Arlington 425 Scaled Back

The massive mixed-use development planned for the vacant land at the corner of Campbell and Chestnut streets in downtown Arlington Heights got a little smaller this year. When the three-building project was originally approved in 2019, it called for 361 apartment units, 36,348 sq. ft. of commercial space, and 7,469 sq. ft. of offices. That changed in April when developer CCH LLC presented a slightly smaller version of the development that reduced the number of apartments to 319, cut the commercial space to 7,962 sq. ft., and completely removed the office space. A 13-story building that would have included both parking and apartments was also shortened to a four-story parking-only structure. The smaller scale of the project was likely welcomed by nearby residents who feared the size of the original proposal would drastically change the character of the neighborhood but many still hoped it would include more affordable housing units. As it stands, the project will have 16 on-site affordable units and the developer agreed to pay $201,800 to Arlington Heights to offset the other eight affordable units that are normally required by village code.

Al Fresco Permanent

COVID-19 has been a constant interruption to regular life for the past two years. But, as Arlington Heights officials have noted, one good thing to come out of the pandemic has been Arlington Al Fresco, the four-block outdoor dining zone at the intersection of Vail Avenue and Campbell Street in Arlington Heights. Since it started in 2020 as a way to help restaurants offset COVID-19 capacity restrictions, Al Fresco has become a dining destination and a vital source of income for businesses. The program’s success prompted officials in 2021 to look for ways to make it permanent. In February, village trustees directed staff to develop a plan for turning Al Fresco into an annual concept starting in 2022, including the possibility of live music and setting noise standards. The work continued in June, when trustees asked staff to look into a new food and beverage tax or licensing fee for participating businesses that would make Al Fresco sustainable and offset the cost of occupying public space.

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