Schaumburg & Hoffman Estates

Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates are the corporate heart of the northwest suburbs, built almost entirely after 1960 around Woodfield Mall, one of the largest malls in the country, and the office parks along I-90 that house Zurich, Motorola’s old campus and dozens of others. Schaumburg has the mall, the Schaumburg Boomers minor league ballpark, the Now Arena, a convention center and a downtown-from-scratch at Town Square; Hoffman Estates, to the west, is more residential, with the Sears Centre site and the Poplar Creek forest preserves. Both are car-first suburbs with good services and a mix of housing that keeps prices moderate.

Where it is

On the map, Schaumburg sits at the junction of I-90 and I-290/Route 53, with Woodfield at Golf Road and Route 53; Hoffman Estates is directly west along Higgins Road and Golf Road out to Route 59 and Barrington Road. Metra’s Milwaukee District West line stops at Schaumburg on the village’s south side, about 45 minutes to Union Station. Pace buses run from Woodfield to the Rosemont Blue Line, and I-90’s Roselle Road, Barrington Road and Route 53 exits serve drivers. The Loop is 45 minutes to over an hour by car.

What to know if you’re moving here

These are practical suburbs with newer housing, big employers and low crime, and almost nothing is walkable.

• Housing is townhomes, ranches, split-levels and condos built from the 1960s on, with typical prices of roughly $200,000 to $700,000 as a broad editorial estimate as of September 2026.
• Parking is driveways, garages and enormous lots; no one worries about it.
• Public schools are Schaumburg District 54 and Township High School District 211 (Schaumburg, Conant and Hoffman Estates high schools).
• Cook County property taxes apply, but Schaumburg’s sales tax from Woodfield keeps its municipal levy low.
• Metra is on the far south edge of Schaumburg, so most commuters drive to I-90 or to the Blue Line at Rosemont.
• The drawback is traffic on Golf Road and Higgins, and a landscape of arterials and parking lots with few places to walk.

What to do if you’re visiting

Everything is a drive, and Woodfield is where most visits start.

• Anyone who lives here knows Yu’s Mandarin on Golf Road is the Chinese restaurant that has anchored Schaumburg’s dining scene since the 1990s.
• Woodfield Mall on Route 53 has more than 250 stores and the LEGO Discovery Center next door.
• From May through September the Schaumburg Boomers play Frontier League baseball at Wintrust Field on Springinsguth Road, and a mile east on West Irving Park Road planes land outside the windows at Pilot Pete’s, the bar and grill inside Schaumburg Regional Airport.
• Near the Now Arena, Chicago Prime Italian on North Meacham Road pairs Creekstone Farms Prime steaks with veal, pasta and a happy hour menu.
• Hoffman Estates has two family-run Italian options: Garibaldi’s on West Higgins Road, which has made New York-style pizza since 1976, and Di Benedetto Trattoria on West Algonquin Road, where the chef works the dining room.
• Spring Valley Nature Center on Plum Grove Road has 135 acres of trails and a working 1880s farm.