For three and a half years, the corner at 100 Park Ave. has been a dark window across from the train. Patch reported in April 2023 that the Starbucks there was about to close. This week the lights are due back on. Sparrow Coffee announced a soft opening for Wednesday, Oct. 21, with hours of 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every day at first, and the cafe joined three of the old units into one space.
The village is putting real money behind it. Sparrow's $622,000 subsidy comes from Clarendon Hills' downtown tax increment financing district, or TIF. Patch describes the idea simply: growth in property tax income inside the district gets reinvested there, and the higher tax income is supposed to pay the subsidy back.
Walk two blocks in any direction and you find the same arrangement. Downtown Clarendon Hills isn't waiting on a new building to give it more places to sit down. Those places are being pieced together one older storefront at a time, each with village money and a deadline attached, while the one big project about to go vertical has been ruled out as a restaurant site.
The corner that beat its own deadline
Sparrow ran late and still came in early. Its original agreement with the village called for the cafe to be ready by last Halloween. It got a couple of extensions, the latest moving the deadline to this Halloween, and according to Patch the planned Wednesday opening beats that date by 10 days.
The village's Oct. 9 community development report shows what took so long. It mentions custom countertops, custom cabinet skins, a full kitchen, a catwalk and a finished second-floor space. At September's Village Board meeting, owner Chris Chacko said the place would be where "great architecture meets craft coffee," and that the project was worth the wait "because we did it correctly," as Patch reported. Sparrow already runs a cafe in Naperville and a roastery in Chicago, so Clarendon Hills gets an established operator.
The hours matter if you plan your week around downtown. Until Sparrow expands them, 1:30 p.m. is closing time, so it serves the morning train and lunch, not an after-dinner stop.
Prospect Avenue, address by address
From the Metra tracks south, Prospect Avenue has three storefront deals at three different stages. Each one depends on village money or village approval.
9 S. Prospect Ave., Cabo. At the Village Board's Nov. 17, 2025 meeting, Cabo Restaurant was described as "coming soon" at this address. Almost a year later, the village's Oct. 9 report says a proposed operator has submitted an application and plans to remodel the space and run a new restaurant there. It is still a set of plans in review. There is no opening date yet.
27 and 29 S. Prospect Ave., Prospect Tavern. This one is still unsettled. The planned restaurant's agreement included a $265,000 subsidy to renovate 27 S. Prospect, and in mid-October village staff recommended that the board end that agreement, Patch reported. The board's Oct. 19 agenda included a resolution to terminate the downtown TIF grant agreement covering 27 and 29 S. Prospect.
31 S. Prospect Ave. The smallest item on the street. The Sept. 21 board agenda included an aesthetic-improvement TIF grant of $1,100 for this address.
Put those amounts side by side and you can see where the village's priorities are. $622,000 is going to a corner cafe. $265,000 was set aside for a tavern renovation. An $1,100 aesthetic-improvement grant came before the board in September. The same TIF district covers all three, and the larger amounts are going to places where people sit down and stay a while.
Ann Street is on the same program. The Oct. 19 agenda also included proposed TIF aesthetic-improvement grants of up to $15,000 per property at 144 and 148 Ann St.
The biggest new building won't have a restaurant
If downtown's next dinner spot were going to come from new construction, the obvious candidate is Parkside Place at 104 Walker Ave. and 301 Park Ave. The project was pitched as a four-story mixed-use building with for-sale condominiums, street-level retail or commercial space and a small public park. At the June 2025 concept presentation, Redwood Construction Group was named as developer and builder.
The Village Board approved the project 5–1 on Sept. 15, 2025. By then the approval discussion described about 17 condominiums with a small first-floor retail or commercial space, and village staff said a bar or restaurant would not be authorized there.
That changes what the coming year downtown will look like. Permit plans and a site-safety fencing plan were submitted by late September. The Oct. 9 report expected the construction fence to go up and a pre-construction meeting to be scheduled this month. So the most visible change downtown this fall will be a fenced job site at Walker and Park, and the building rising there will add homes and a little retail, but no tables.
A second condo plan stepped back
Burlington Avenue saw a quieter change. In August, Patch reported that MC Development Group had proposed six condos over ground-floor retail at 136 Burlington Ave. and wanted a 50-foot height where the village limit is 40 feet. At the Oct. 1 Zoning Board of Appeals and Plan Commission meeting, the petitioner withdrew both variance requests. For now, the four-story building that drew attention on Burlington this summer is not moving forward in that form.
The street work around the storefronts
Some of the village's money is going into the ground between the buildings. Public works finished new signs and crosswalks for the Walker alley in early October, and sidewalk and curb replacement at 200 Park Ave. was scheduled for Oct. 12 through 16 to remove trip hazards. At the Sept. 21 meeting, the board passed a revised scope for the village's Downtown Improvement Plan. That plan is a planning step and does not mean construction has been approved.
Where downtown fills up between now and December
Big events still land on the same few blocks, and the calendar shows how much downtown relies on Village Hall, Prospect Park and the Metra lot when there are only a few restaurant seats.
- Saturday, Oct. 24, Chamber Halloween Walk, 3 to 6 p.m. The Clarendon Hills Chamber lists trick-or-treating from 3 to 5 p.m., then dancing, shopping and dining downtown from 5 to 6 p.m., with trunk-or-treating at the North Metra parking lot on Burlington Avenue.
- Friday, Oct. 23, Halloween house-decoration contest photo deadline. The Clarendon Hills Park District holds voting the week of Oct. 26 and announces winners on Halloween.
- Thursday, Oct. 29, Boo on the Block at Prospect Park, 4 to 7 p.m. Free for Clarendon Hills residents.
- Saturday, Oct. 31, trick-or-treating, 3 to 7 p.m. These are the village's official hours.
- November and December Park District events. Letters from Santa starts Nov. 1, with registration due Dec. 12. Taste of Chocolate is Nov. 13 and Dine & Dance is Nov. 20.
- Saturday, Dec. 5, Chamber Holiday Walk, 4 to 8 p.m. Merchant shopping starts at 4 p.m. and the Village Hall tree lighting is at 5 p.m.
- Friday, Dec. 11, Santa's Workshop at the Community Center, 4 to 7 p.m. Registration is limited to residents and capacity is limited.
- Mid-December evenings. Candy Cottage Creations is Dec. 15, Family Holiday Bingo is Dec. 17 and Sip into the Season is Dec. 18.
The Holiday Walk will be the first big downtown evening since Sparrow's planned opening. Holiday shoppers walking from the tree lighting will pass a corner that was dark for the last three of these walks. The rest of Prospect Avenue will look about the same as it did last December, since every deal on that street is still in progress.
Every one of these storefront changes affects how a home near downtown is described when it goes on the market. A listing two blocks from a working cafe reads differently from one two blocks from an empty window, and buyers ask what the fenced site at Walker and Park will become. If you own near Park, Prospect or Burlington and are thinking about selling in the next year, I can walk you through how these downtown projects fit into your pricing and presentation. Start with a conversation with Casselyn Tertell and get your instant home valuation.
