A stretch of vacant land near the intersection of Route 38 and Peace Road in DeKalb that has sat undeveloped for years took its first real step toward a future this week, as the city's Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to give initial support to a concept plan from Shodeen Group covering roughly 125 acres. The vote came Monday, but the plan is still just that — a concept, with no final decisions made and no end users identified for the property.
Dave Patzelt represented Shodeen Group LLC and briefed the commission at its regular bimonthly meeting, according to Shaw Local. The proposal bundles two parcels: about 61 acres at the southwest corner of Route 38 and Webster Road, which Shodeen acquired in 2023 and wants annexed and rezoned to the Planned Development Industrial district, and an adjacent 64-acre tract at the southeast corner of Peace Road and Route 38 that's part of the existing DeKalb Commons development. The city's own project list, updated Oct. 14, described the request as seeking to annex and rezone the 61-acre parcel “to the 'PD-I' District to accommodate industrial uses,” according to the City of DeKalb.
Three Scenarios, No Tenants Yet
Shodeen laid out three possible paths for the combined site. The first mixes commercial and multifamily development with industrial uses. The second keeps commercial development at the southeast corner of Peace Road and Route 38 while allowing industrial uses on the rest of the property. The third converts the entire site to industrial use. The company said it plans to market the land for some combination of industrial, commercial and residential uses, and it's seeking flexibility to let industrial development extend from the eastern half of the site into the western half, per the same account.
No end users have been identified for any part of the property, and city staff still expects to review the plans for preliminary and final development consideration before anything moves forward. The site's 64-acre portion traces back to an annexation agreement dated 2004 and amended in 2008, and Shodeen's current proposal includes amending that agreement to allow industry-related uses while preserving the previously approved options for multifamily and commercial development, per the city's project list.
Road Costs Loom Over the Deal
Money — specifically, the cost of widening roads around the intersection — sits at the center of the pitch. Patzelt told the commission that multi-million-dollar road-widening costs around Route 38 and Peace Road have made development economically infeasible on their own, the station's report notes. He argued that spreading those improvement costs across more acreage could make the numbers work for industrial users, and the city is hoping that bringing in end users will help fund the needed upgrades to Peace Road.
Illinois offers economic incentives for industrial uses, and those incentives can help fund public improvements like intersection upgrades for industrial users specifically — but commercial, retail and hotel uses don't qualify for that same state funding, the report states. That distinction helps explain why Shodeen is pushing for flexibility to expand industrial use across more of the site rather than locking in commercial or residential plans.
It isn't the first time Shodeen has weighed its options here without pulling the trigger. Back in 2019, the company said it had no current plans to develop multiple DeKalb sites it owned because it hadn't been offered any economic incentives, according to an earlier Shaw Local report. The incentive question appears to still be shaping the company's approach seven years later.
Disclosure Rule and Occupancy Threshold Also in Play
City planner Dan Olson noted that part of the request involves removing a requirement from the 2008 agreement that obligated apartment owners to provide disclosure statements. Those statements would have informed prospective apartment tenants that they'd be living near a major roadway, an airport and planned industrial developments. The amended agreement would also lower the commercial occupancy threshold required for multifamily development from 75% to 50%, according to the same briefing.
Commissioner Bill McMahon voiced support for the plan, saying it sounds exciting and offers options for investment. The unanimous initial support from the commission doesn't amount to final approval of the annexation, rezoning or agreement amendments — those remain pending, with city staff set to weigh in further as the plans move toward preliminary and final development review.
Not the Only Big Plan Near Peace Road
This isn't the only large-scale project circulating near that corridor. A separate proposal from JJK343 LLC, doing business as ChicagoWest Business Center, has floated an industrial and commercial business park along Peace Road that would include a travel center, gas station and convenience store across roughly 114 acres at Peace Road and Fairview Drive, Shaw Local previously reported. ChicagoWest was also behind Endeavour Energy's 560-acre data center, which the city approved in December. Planning studies going back nearly two decades have anticipated this kind of growth pressure along DeKalb's eastern corridor: a 2009 DeKalb-Sycamore Area Transportation Study predicted that population growth in the area would attract commercial, residential and industrial development and strain existing roads, while a 2008 corridor study had already flagged the 61-acre Webster Road parcel, noting it abuts DeKalb Commons to the west and was once expected to anchor 644 apartment units, 212 hotel rooms and roughly 145,000 square feet of retail.
