Elgin’s Larkin Place renovation wins award from Landmarks Illinois
Full Circle Communities’ conversion of the Larkin Center on Elgin’s west side into housing units has won a 2024 Landmarks Illinois Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Award.
The award for rehabilitation from the historic preservation nonprofit will be presented at a ceremony to be held Oct. 18 in Chicago, according to a news release.
Larkin Center was built in 1912 and had been vacant since 2013 when it was purchased by Full Circle Communities and converted in 2021 into Larkin Place, a 48-unit affordable housing complex. Landmarks Illinois praised the effort as a “thoughtfully designed adaptive reuse project … that resembles Elgin’s characteristic historic architecture.”
For more information, go to www.landmarks.org/events/richard-h-driehaus-foundation-preservation-awards.
West Dundee hires Schaumburg officer as its next police chief
The village of West Dundee has hired a 26-year veteran with the Schaumburg Police Department to serve as its next police chief.
Shawn Green will be sworn in as chief at the Oct. 7 village board meeting, succeeding Anthony Gorski, who recently retired after nearly 37 years in law enforcement, 28 of which were with the West Dundee Police Department. He was named police chief in 2019.
Green is currently Schaumburg’s deputy police chief. He was hired by the village as a patrol officer and has spent 26 years in a variety of positions, including investigations and patrol sergeant, patrol lieutenant, public information officer and patrol division commander, a news release said.
He was promoted to deputy police chief in 2022, and has completed advanced training at the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy, School of Police Staff and Command at Northwestern University and the National Emergency Management Advanced Academy, the release said. He has a master’s degree in administrative leadership.
“Mr. Green is a tremendously accomplished law enforcement professional with more than 26 years of extensive operations and management skills,” Village Manager Joseph Cavallaro said in the release. “With almost half of the West Dundee Police Department officers currently having two or less years of police experience, Shawn brings depth and years of experience to help mentor and coach the young officers.”
Green will be paid a salary of $155,000 when he starts his new job Oct. 2.
Beef-A-Roo restaurant on Main Street in West Dundee shuts its doors
The Beef-A-Roo restaurant at 820 W. Main St. in West Dundee has apparently closed.
A sign on the restaurant’s locked door posted by NiCor states that gas service would be disconnected for non-payment if the outstanding bill was not rectified by July 30.
Messages left for the Rockford-based business were not returned. However, the West Dundee location is no longer listed on the Beefaroo website.
Village Manager Joe Cavallaro said West Dundee had not been officially notified of the restaurant’s closing.
The West Dundee Beefaroo opened in June 2021 in what had been a Pizza Hut restaurant off Route 72 near now-closed Spring Hill Mall. Supply chain issues brought on by the pandemic delayed a planned opening earlier that year.
