Local city information for Hoffman Estates, IL

Hoffman Estates is a northwestern suburb of Chicago in Illinois. The village is located primarily in Cook County with a small section in Kane County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the village population was 49,495 and estimated to be 52,520 in 2003. The village was incorporated in 1959 .

The village now serves as the headquarters location for the Sears Holdings Corporation. It also hosts a series of special events at the Sears Centre Arena and is home to the Chicago Storm of the Major Indoor Soccer League, the Chicago Slaughter of the Continental Indoor Football League and the Chicago Bliss of the Lingerie Football League. Starting in 2009, the village will also become the home of the Heartland International Tattoo, one of the largest music & dance festivals of its kind in the Midwest.

In 1954, a local farmer sold his farm to Sam and Jack Hoffman, owners of the Father and Son Construction Company (referred to as "F & S Construction"), for a subdivision in Cook County. The land, now known as Parcel A, was located east of Roselle Road between Golf and Higgins Roads. The first homeowners began to move into the new subdivision in late 1955. The homes were built on half-acre lots. Hoffman had built residential homes in Arizona; hence, street names in Hoffman Estates reflect that origin: Maricopa Lane, Flagstaff Lane, Arizona Boulevard.

On September 19, 1959, residents voted to incorporate as the Village of Hoffman Estates. (An earlier referendum among residents, in 1958, had endorsed changing the name to "Twinbrook", which was the name of the telephone exchange for the area, by a vote of 236 to 134. However, the residents' views were overruled by the homeowners association board of directors. The builder, Jack Hoffman, obviously wanted the community to continue with the name "Hoffman Estates", and the board said they did not want to antagonize Hoffman, who was donating schools and other community benefits; additionally, the head of the village board claimed that the name Hoffman Estates had been legally established "through usage" and thus could not be changed. This decision led to the resignation of six members of the board, and considerable internal turmoil with charges that the board engaged in "deceit and the use of half-truths". In a later residents' vote, the name Hoffman Estates was chosen for use in incorporation.) The charter was issued on September 23, 1959. The population at the time was about 8,000, and the incorporated area was just under three square miles.

Hoffman Estates turned into a major subdivision with Centex Corporation mass-producing houses on adjacent lots, rather than custom-building them on scattered lots. Some of the lots west of Roselle Road had been built on soft earth, marsh, and peat bogs; by the late 1960s, a few foundations had begun to crumble.

In 1958, the Northwest Tollway opened, making the village more attractive to Chicago commuters. Beginning in 1961, the first land north of the tollway was annexed to the Village of Hoffman Estates. Some were annexed by 1962, including the areas that are now Winston Knolls, Westbury and the Paul Douglas Forest Preserve. The annexations more than doubled the incorporated land area.

The opening of the Woodfield Mall to the east in 1971, made the area a major business center. Various small office buildings were built by 1980, followed by major complexes such as Northwest Corporate Centre, Barrington Pointe, Greenspoint, and Siemens Gammasonics. Another attempt to change the name of the city, this time to East Barrington, was made in the early 1980s but failed upon a residential vote.

Hoffman Estates' population nearly tripled to 22,000 in 1970, grew to 37,000 in 1980 and the 1990 census put the total population at 46,363 with over 16,000 households.

In the 1990s, the Prairie Stone Business Park began development. This expansive master planned multi-purpose business park is bounded by Illinois Route 59 on the east, Interstate 90 on the south, Illinois Route 72 on the north, and Beverly Road on the west. The business park came to fruition in 1993 when Sears, Roebuck and Company relocated from the Sears Tower in Chicago to a sprawling headquarters in the northwest part of Praire Stone. Throughout the 1990s, a health & wellness center and child care facility were developed as well as other smaller office buildings and a branch of Northern Illinois University. Development of the business park is still ongoing, and recent additions in the 2000s include the 11,000-seat Sears Centre arena, office buildings for the online campus of American InterContinental University, Serta, WT Engineering, I-CAR, and Mary Kay, Cabela's outdoor outfitters store, a 295-room Marriott hotel, and the Poplar Creek Crossing Retail Center, which is anchored by Target and numerous other big-box retailers. Future development will include further office buildings and retail development, Sun Island Hotel and Water Park, an amphitheater, restaurants, and a Metra Star Line rail station.

List your home on the MLS in Hoffman Estates, Illinois

Copyright © Owners.com 2012. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy • Terms & Conditions • Site Map

Equal Housing Opportunity