After years of vacancy and debate, Highland Park’s old Solo Cup manufacturing site is finally getting a second act as housing. The Habitat Company is teaming up with national builder M/I Homes on a plan for 227 for-sale townhomes across the 28-acre property. Village leaders say the project, to be called The Bowery of Highland Park, will be the community’s largest housing development in generations.
Timeline and approvals
The development team plans to close on the parcel at 1700 Old Deerfield Road this spring and is targeting a construction start in the second half of 2026, with an estimated 18 to 24 months of building, according to The Real Deal. The joint venture follows years of stalled proposals for the site and comes on the heels of final city approvals earlier this year.
What the plan includes
The current plan calls for 227 for-sale homes spread across 48 townhome buildings, each with a three-bedroom layout and attached two-car garage. The project was scaled back from an earlier, larger concept, as reported by The Record.
Thirty-four of the townhomes would be reserved to meet Highland Park’s inclusionary housing requirement. The site plan also preserves roughly nine acres of open space and layers in a set of amenities: a clubhouse with an outdoor pool, a public tot lot and a dog park.
Old site, new plan
The property has sat largely unused since Solo Cup left around 2008 and is owned by Red Cup Land Company, which paid roughly $6.2 million for the land in 2012, according to The Real Deal. Highland Park’s City Council granted final approval on February 9, but not before tweaking the plan in response to neighborhood concerns.
Council members required the developers to remove a proposed pedestrian crosswalk and to expand buffering next to a nearby restaurant after residents raised questions about safety and how close the project would sit to existing businesses.
Neighbors and trade-offs
Public meetings on the Bowery did not produce unanimous applause. Some neighbors argued the townhome density would worsen local traffic and said they wanted more active recreation space built into the plan. Supporters countered that community input had already helped refine the proposal, according to The Record.
City officials say they plan to keep an eye on traffic impacts as the project moves from approval into construction.
Builder track record and local impact
M/I Homes has been active across Lake County and the northern suburbs in recent years, rolling out new townhome and single-family subdivisions in communities such as Buffalo Grove and Hawthorn Woods, according to local coverage of area projects. The Daily Herald notes the builder’s pipeline in Lake County, a track record the development team says positions them to deliver the Bowery on a relatively tight schedule.
Developers say they plan to close on the Highland Park site this spring and begin work later in 2026. Sale prices have not yet been released, and the schedule will depend on final permitting and market conditions, according to local reporting. Patch reports construction could start as soon as the spring, and village officials will continue to review landscaping, traffic-mitigation measures and public-access features as more detailed plans are submitted.
