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| Golf course price set at $10.7 million | |
| Dec 19, 2007 | |
| Joseph Sjostrom, Staff Reporter jsjostrom@tribune.com | |
| Chicago Tribune | |
| Pertains to IPP - Aurora Branch, Naperville, Aurora | |
| Forest district seeks Naperville property A DuPage County court has ruled that the county Forest Preserve District must pay $10.7 million for a 204-acre golf course in Naperville, but an expected appeal will keep the property in private hands for another year or longer, officials said Tuesday. The jury verdict came last week, after a trial in the district's suit to take over Country Lakes Golf Club, on the west side of the Country Lakes subdivision. The district began condemnation of the course in December 1999 primarily because the land would be valuable for flood-control measures, said forest preserve board member Wallace Brown. The jury set a price tag of $10,725,000, an amount equal to the lower of two appraisals placed in evidence by the Forest Preserve District. The owner maintained that the property is worth at least $14 million and could be worth $20 million or more once development restrictions on the property are lifted. The golf course is owned by Robert Krilich, 77, who was released from federal prison last year after serving 9 years on racketeering charges for bribing Oakbrook Terrace officials in the mid-1980s to back plans for a large, mixed-use project there. Part of that case included Krilich faking a hole-in-one contest at Country Lakes so the son of Richard Sarallo, mayor of Oakbrook Terrace at the time, could win a $40,000 1931 Cadillac. The property -- between Diehl and North Aurora Roads, west of Illinois Highway 59 -- contains an 18-hole golf course, a driving range, clubhouse with banquet facilities and 54 acres of undeveloped land, including wetlands that are important for flood control and are visited by migrating waterfowl, forest preserve officials said. Unlike other recent forest preserve acquisitions, the property has no unique ecological features and is surrounded by developed real estate rather than other natural areas. The property is bound by residential development on the east and south and by commercial areas on the west and north, which makes its forest preserve use uncertain. "At this juncture it doesn't have a high ecological value, but if some is restored to prairie, then hiking and biking trails can be developed. Then you have forest preserve value," said Brent Manning, executive director of the Forest Preserve District. He said the property will be open space accessible in particular to residents of the adjacent subdivision. "It's eventual use is a matter that has to be decided, but it could be a very nice area for an evening walk or a morning jog," Manning said. Jim Wagner, Krilich's attorney in the condemnation case, said Tuesday that he expects to appeal the jury's finding on the grounds that the forest preserve originally didn't negotiate in good faith for the land because, in the late 1990s, it offered less for the property than the amount of its own appraisal. |
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