Legacy Square

In 2003, Park Forest invited the Urban Land Institute-Chicago and Campaign for Sensible Growth to conduct a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) with the village. The panel’s experts – representing professional fields such as real estate development, commercial market development, finance, and planning – recommended revitalization strategies for the village center; a formerly vibrant mall that was suffering from high turnover and vacancy. The TAP recommended Park Forest earmark some of the underutilized mall land for residential development, consolidate commercial space, and increase the consumer base for current and future business. The Legacy Square development became a key component of these efforts.

After building several successful communities throughout the Chicago region, Bigelow Homes worked with the Village of Park Forest to redesign a parcel in its downtown area into a combined retail and housing space. The new subdivision, Legacy Square, is comprised of 63 new single-family homes and five homes from an earlier, incomplete development; offering two-bedroom, three-bedroom and four-bedroom homes.

All Legacy Square homes have energy-efficiency features such as water-saving showerheads and insulated foundations that reduce long-term costs. Other features include two-car attached garages, luxury carpets, laminated kitchen countertops and high-quality appliances. Legacy Square’s three live/work homes each have 500 square feet of workspace on the first floor with a two-bedroom home above. The workspace is suitable for offices, small retail or artist studios and galleries. There are five homes with attached accessory dwelling units–self-contained homes above the garage–that are ideal for extended family or as an attached apartment. Legacy Square is compact, with plenty of sidewalks throughout the neighborhood and a small park in the center. Each lot is approximately 30 x 90 square feet, and most homes share a common garage wall with the neighboring home (but are otherwise detached).

Bigelow Homes was able to sell the homes at an attainable price because of the varied types and sizes of homes in predesigned models that fit the lot sizes of the Legacy Square development. Having these prepared plans reduced Bigelow’s construction costs, translating to lower price points for buyers. While there were no price restrictions for this development, six of the homes went to families meeting the low-income guidelines set by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. Bigelow Homes also used a financing model that provided buyers with affordable financing options, offered a “quick delivery” home – a pre-developed model home with no upgrades – which came fully furnished and only required a small down payment. Additionally, Bigelow Homes offered low interest rates in partnership with area banks for qualified buyers, enabling low-income families the opportunity for homeownership.

Through its Department of Planning and Economic Development, the Village has since provided further financial support, recruited retailers to the downtown district, and worked to beautify nearby community buildings and facilities, such as the Village Hall, Village Green, and Cultural Arts Building. The Village’s downtown improvements have also continued with an additional 44-unit affordable one- and two-bedroom apartment development to be completed in the spring of 2026, marketing and retail retention strategies, and the restoration of several underutilized properties to the tax rolls.

Legacy Square reflects Park Forest’s commitment to the health of its downtown district and demonstrates how a housing stock that serves a diverse population can reinvigorate a community.