The first tenants have already moved in at Carden Springs, a new and sizable apartment and townhome development in north Normal aimed squarely at the McLean County’s housing shortage.
The first 14 units in the first building are done, with a second building expected to open in mid-October, said Jason Barickman, a principal with Carden Springs developer Fairlawn. They expect to have around 60 to 70 units done by the end of 2025, with all 477 units done sometime in 2027.
“Leasing is in full sprint,” Barickman said. “New construction is viewed very favorably. Even though there’s an ongoing construction site, nothing beats moving into a brand-new unit. And the amenities that’ll come along with this, I think, are very compelling to people.”
WGLT recently toured Carden Springs with Barickman and Meredith Gillespie, Fairlawn’s senior regional operations manager. And they showed off a rare sight in Bloomington-Normal: actual housing being built on a large scale. Several of the 29 buildings are under construction. The first completed one, Building Q, opened to residents last month.
Carden Springs will be nearly 40 acres when completed, on infill property along Raab Road and Beech Street, just south of Interstate 55 and the Ironwood Golf Course. Amenities will include a trail, pool, dog park, pickleball courts, and grill pavilions throughout. Tenants can pay extra for garage parking [in-building or detached]. There will also be EV chargers.
It’s big, but it’s not cookie-cutter, Barickman said. It’s not especially dense either.
“A lot of rental communities are symmetrical in design, with all the roads at 90-degree angles and all the buildings are Lego style. We wanted to create a more aesthetically pleasing community. So what you see is roads that are more meandering, buildings are asymmetrical and offset, so that it’s designed to enhance the aesthetic appeal of the community,” he said.
There will be apartments with one, two or three bedrooms, and some three-bedroom townhomes. The apartments come with in-unit washer/dryers, double-vanity bathrooms, and a mudroom space near the door, among other perks. Barickman said they leaned into more square footage for each unit, countering what he called a trend in new construction to shrink the space.
“People who live here, they’re being asked to pay a lot of rent. But they’re really getting a more sizable unit – in addition to it being brand new – a really nice-sized unit,” Barickman said.
Indeed, they’re billed as luxury apartments for a reason. One-bedroom units start at $1,620/month, plus a utility fee of around $100 that includes internet, water, sewer, trash and open-lot parking. Two-bedrooms start at $2,000, and three-bedrooms at $2,400. Townhomes will go for $2,800.
Even luxury apartments can positively impact renters at the cheaper end of the market, as people with higher incomes opt for the shiny new units and free up inventory for everybody else.
Fairlawn knows the market well. It’s also building the Weldon Reserve housing development nearby in north Normal [rental homes], plus a few other existing complexes.
“There’s clearly a significant lack of supply here” in Bloomington-Normal, Barickman said. “We set our pricing along the way, and we’re getting the rents we’re asking for.”
Demand so far has been strong, Barickman and Gillespie said. And it’s not just Rivian workers driving mobility here. Barickman said they’ve seen interest from those looking to downsize out of a home.
“We expected [demand] would be strong. Obviously, to pull the trigger on a big project like this, you anticipated that the demand would exist,” he said. “We're seeing that play out in real time. You look around, you see a lot of ongoing construction, and the fact that people are seeing that and still electing to sign leases, I think, suggests the demand exists and there’s something unique about this project.”
Fairlawn is set to receive around $1.4 million in incentives from the Town of Normal – although that required the first building to be finished by Oct. 1. That’s now happened. Barickman praised the Town of Normal for its collaborative approach to the project.
“Everyone’s got their roles: We're trying to build, and they've got their process. But everyone seems to be working in a good spirit of, let's work through the day-to-day challenges and find a way to get things done,” he said.
There have been challenges, of course. Spring and summer were wet, which slowed construction. President Trump’s tariffs were another. Fairlawn took the initiative to buy up more of its needed materials upfront, including Canadian lumber that might’ve been impacted by a trade dispute.
“That was a big risk, and we wanted to take a lot of those risks off the table. What we don’t know is what the future holds. Looking backwards, things like tariffs weren’t on people’s radar until they were. Things like COVID,” Barickman said. “We don’t know all of what the future holds for housing anywhere, let alone in Bloomington-Normal, and that’s a risk for a long project like this.”
Indeed, construction on Carden Springs is expected to stretch into 2027.
