St. Charles approves 12-unit apartment building for the last vacant First Street lot

St. Charles is finally getting a building on the last empty lot of its First Street redevelopment. On September 21, 2026, the St. Charles City Council approved a redevelopment agreement for the parcel at the northeast corner of Illinois Street and Route 31 in downtown St. Charles, a lot that has sat vacant since the city’s First Street plan was approved in 2006. The developer plans a four-story building with 12 apartments over a ground-floor parking garage.

The council vote came on the consent agenda of its regular meeting, listed on the city’s posted agenda as a resolution approving a redevelopment agreement for the “Building 8 Lot, First Street Redevelopment.” The Daily Herald reported the details of the agreement on September 25.

Key facts at a glance

The deal, as the Daily Herald describes it, is a fairly small project with a lot of public strings attached.

• The developer is Fore R’s, LLC, a group made up of Bob Rasmussen, Rick Dahl, Ryan Corcoran and Ryan Samuelson.
• The building would be four stories, with parking on the ground floor and 12 apartments on the three floors above.
• Rents are projected at $1,900 to $2,400 a month, plus $125 a month for a parking space.
• Construction is estimated at about $3 million.
• The developer will pay the city $100,000 for the lot, which was appraised at $340,000.

The last piece of a 20-year plan

First Street is the block of restaurants, offices, condos and a plaza on the west bank of the Fox River, south of Main Street (Route 64), that replaced an older stretch of downtown St. Charles beginning in the late 2000s. The city was a partner in that project from the start, and the original 2006 plan called for a row of three- and four-story mixed-use buildings with shops at street level and offices or apartments above, according to a city announcement from October 2025.

Most of that row got built. The lot at Illinois Street and Route 31, which the city refers to as the Building 8 lot, did not. It changed hands, sat through the recession and the pandemic, and eventually landed with the city. In October 2025 St. Charles put out a request for proposals for the parcel, saying it wanted a developer with a creative vision and that it was especially interested in adding residential units downtown. Proposals were due February 6, 2026, and the city said at the time that it expected to pick a developer that month and see construction start between summer 2026 and 2027.

The agreement approved September 21 is the outcome of that process. To be clear about what has and has not happened, the council has approved the terms of the deal and the sale of the land, but the building itself still has to go through design and permitting before anything gets built. The Daily Herald’s account does not describe a separate plan commission review.

What the city is putting in

The lot is being sold below its appraised value, and the city is picking up some of the site costs. The Daily Herald lists the public side of the deal as follows.

• The city sells the lot for $100,000, about $240,000 under the appraisal.
• The city will reimburse the developer for streetscape improvements, estimated at $50,000 to $100,000.
• The city will install electrical infrastructure to the site at a cost of about $49,000.
• If the developer does not meet the terms of the agreement, the property reverts to the city.

That reverter clause is the city’s main protection. The First Street project has a history of stalled deadlines; earlier phases went through years of extensions after the 2008 downturn, which is part of why the lot is still empty today.

Deadlines the developer has to hit

The agreement sets two hard dates, according to the Daily Herald.

1. Construction must begin by May 1, 2027.
2. The developer must obtain an occupancy permit by December 1, 2027.
3. Missing either date puts the property at risk of going back to the city under the reverter clause.

Those are tight windows for a four-story building. Starting in the spring of 2027 and finishing before the end of that year would mean about seven months of construction on a small, tight downtown site with parking below grade level and a state highway on one side.

What it means for downtown St. Charles

Twelve apartments will not change the character of downtown, but the site itself has been an eyesore at one of the busiest corners in the city. Route 31 (2nd Street) is the main north-south road through the west side of downtown, and Illinois Street is the block where First Street’s restaurant row meets the highway. A vacant lot with a fence has been the first thing drivers see turning off Route 31 toward the river for nearly two decades.

The rents in the agreement, $1,900 to $2,400 a month, are in line with the newer apartment buildings in the Fox Valley downtowns and above what most older rentals in St. Charles charge. The ground-floor parking garage, with spaces rented separately at $125 a month, means the building will not add to the demand for the public spaces along First Street and in the city’s nearby parking lots.

The Daily Herald’s story includes no comments from the council or the developer, and the city’s agenda packet for September 21 lists the item without discussion. Mayor Clint Hull, whose name appears on the agenda, has not issued a statement on the approval. The next public step will be building plans filed with the city’s community development department, which publishes a weekly development report on its website.

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