If you drive Route 83 through Lake Villa, you already know the building. It sits at the northwest corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Grand Avenue, brick and quiet, the kind of structure you stop noticing until someone asks what it used to be. It used to be a school. For most of the last decade, it's been nothing at all.
That's changing, though not in the way a for-sale sign usually changes things. The mechanism behind this one is worth understanding, because it explains both why nothing happened here for ten years and why, in the last twelve months, this corner of downtown suddenly has a name attached to it, a concept drawing, and company.
A Century of Additions, Then a Decade of Nothing
The building started small. Lake Villa's Central School opened in January 1910 as a two-story, four-classroom brick building. A gymnasium was added in 1939. Renovations and classroom expansions followed in 1951 and 1953. In 1973, the district renamed the school for Joseph J. Pleviak, a teacher who'd become principal. The original 1910 structure was demolished in 1979 and replaced with the building that stands there now.
Lake Villa Elementary District 41 students attended their last day at Pleviak in June 2014. The building didn't sit empty right away. Round Lake Unit District 116 leased it for a kindergarten program that ran through the 2023-2024 school year. Once that lease ended, the building went fully vacant, a century-old landmark with no one inside it and no clear next step.
Why a School District Can't Just Sell a School
Here's the part that explains the decade of silence. School districts in Illinois face real limits on how they can dispose of property. A straightforward sale to a private developer isn't always the available path. What District 41 and the village worked out instead was an intergovernmental agreement, a legal structure that let the district transfer the 5.47-acre property to the Village of Lake Villa rather than sell it directly. The village would market it and pursue redevelopment. When it eventually sells, the district gets 80% of the proceeds for educational priorities. The village keeps 20% to cover its own costs, things like environmental studies, legal fees, and planning.
Village Administrator Michael Strong was blunt about the distinction when the agreement was announced: it's an intergovernmental agreement, not a purchase-sale agreement. That's a technical difference, but it's the technical difference that finally moved a landmark that had been stuck since 2014. The village followed up in 2025 by rezoning the site to Central Business District, which is what allowed the kind of mixed residential-and-retail project now on the table.
What's Actually Been Proposed
In May 2026, the village selected JM Developers to advance plans for the site. By June, architecture firm Cordogan Clark and Associates had produced a concept: a mixed-use, walkable development with apartments across several buildings, ground-floor retail, live-work units, structured parking, and a central green space for public gathering. The current numbers, according to JM Developers principal Michael J. Poulakidas, land around 112 residential units and 23,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, with upper-tier market-rate apartments closer to the busy corner and lower-density housing stepping down toward the existing neighborhood behind it.
"The overall goal is transform the site into a catalyst project that strengthens downtown Lake Villa's economic vitality, expands housing options and creates a more connected, active community," Poulakidas told the Daily Herald.
None of this is finalized. Strong described the project as being in its "early innings" as of this summer, with a memorandum of understanding as the next formal step before market studies, environmental review, traffic analysis, and stormwater work even begin. The numbers Poulakidas shared could still shift as design continues. What is locked in is the intergovernmental agreement, the CBD zoning, and a developer with a name and an architect attached, which is more than this corner has had in ten years.
The Rest of Downtown Didn't Wait
Here's the thing residents keep missing because each project reads as its own small headline: Pleviak isn't the only thing moving. Three other approvals landed in the same few months, all within a short drive of that same intersection.
| Project | What it is | Location | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pleviak School site | ~112 units, 23,000 sq ft retail (concept) | Route 83 & Grand Ave | Developer selected, concept stage |
| Cedar Lake Estates | 127 single-family homes (Lennar) | Grand Ave & Cedar Lake Road | Final plat approved March 16, 2026 |
| Starling Senior Apartments | 40 age-restricted units | Deep Lake Road | Approved April 1, 2026 |
| Lake Tower Crossing | Commercial expansion, Dunkin'-anchored | 802 Tower Drive | Amendment approved May 6, 2026 |
Cedar Lake Estates is the biggest of the four in raw housing terms. Lennar's plan calls for 127 detached homes ranging from 1,866 to 2,907 square feet, built on the former Cedar Lake Park property. The plan also includes two park spaces and a walking trail connecting Steven Sherwood Park to Cedar Lake Road, giving residents a new pedestrian link out to Grant Woods Forest Preserve. Starling Senior Apartments, approved the same spring, adds 40 age-restricted units for residents 55 and older on Deep Lake Road. And Lake Tower Crossing's commercial expansion, anchored by a Dunkin' drive-through at 802 Tower Drive, is quieter news but it's the same pattern: existing commercial ground getting built out rather than sitting flat.
What This Actually Adds Up To
Look at those four projects together and a different picture forms than the one you get reading about any single one. The village's own marketing materials for the Pleviak site put Lake Villa's population at roughly 8,400 people. Against a village that size, adding 127 new homes, 40 senior units, and a concept for another 112 apartments, all inside about twelve months, is not background noise. It's the fastest stretch of downtown-adjacent construction and approval activity this village has seen in years, and it's happening at three or four points that are all within a short drive of each other and of the Lake Villa Metra station, which sits two blocks from the Pleviak corner itself.
For someone who already lives here, the practical version of that story isn't about property values. It's about what your Tuesday looks like in two or three years. More rooftops near Cedar Lake Road likely means more cars on Grand Avenue during school drop-off. A finished Pleviak concept with 23,000 square feet of ground-floor retail means downtown gains foot traffic that the businesses already there, the diner on Cedar Avenue, the brewery a block over, the restaurants along Grand, would presumably welcome rather than compete against. A public green on a corner that's been fenced off and empty for a decade changes what "downtown" even means as a place to walk to.
What to Watch Next
The village has said it will share updates as plans evolve, and its development updates page is the most direct way to track formal votes as they happen. Between now and any shovel in the ground, expect a memorandum of understanding, then the market and environmental studies Strong referenced, then a formal development agreement, then the zoning and planning approvals that any project this size requires. That's a multi-year runway, not a multi-month one. But for a building that sat untouched since a kindergarten class packed up its classroom a little over two years ago, having a runway at all is the news.
If you're watching how downtown Lake Villa is changing and want a neighbor's read on what it means day to day, or you're weighing a move into the area and want the fuller picture beyond a single headline, Dana Pierson-Emering knows this corner of Lake County block by block. Let's connect — start your search or get a personalized home valuation.
