Wonder Lake takes big step toward downtown plans as Hancock Drive annexation advances

With a judge’s order in hand, the Wonder Lake Village Board is set to annex Hancock Drive to the village at its Wednesday meeting.

McHenry County Judge Kevin Costello signed off on the annexation agreement Friday morning.

“Since hearing this today, I’ve had a smile from ear to ear,” village Trustee Joe Houston said. “This is a really great start of the community coming together to make it happen.”

Thor Holdings LLC, owned in part by downtown property owner Tom Cooper, kicked off the effort to bring the retail strip into the village by petitioning for the annexation.

Cooper and village Trustee Dick Hilton “really invested in getting everyone on board and doing the footwork for it,” Wonder Lake Village President Dan Dycus said.

Up until Thursday night, there were objectors – property owners or voters living in the affected area who did not want the annexation to go forward, Dycus said.

“Basically, we needed an annexation agreement that set forth the terms of their annexation” to get those property owners on board, Dycus said. That agreement included allowing the owner of Horizontals, at 7620 Hancock Drive, a 100% rebate of the bar’s local gaming revenue for the next 10 years.

“Based on back-of-a-napkin math, it comes to about $300,000 over 10 years,” Dycus said.

Once the annexation is formalized via the Village Board vote, the next step is getting village water and sewer to the Hancock Drive addresses via the Stonewater subdivision.

Construction began in 2021 on the first of 3,400 to 3,700 homes expected in the development that stretches from Route 120 to McCullom Lake Road. Developer Andy Teegen and McHenry-based NRB Land built a wastewater treatment plant and wells to serve an expected 10,000 residents there and on the east side of Wonder Lake – including Hancock Drive.

The water and sewer project’s engineering is complete, and much of the $12 million in funding needed is in place, Dycus said.

“The project is completely covered,” Wonder Lake Village Manager Bill Beith said, including a $2.67 million grant, a $900,000 grant pending with the help of U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, another round of federal grants and a loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency “that would cover any shortfall.”

“As soon as the annexation becomes official on Wednesday evening, we will start to nail down dates,” Dycus said, adding that he’d like to see construction begin during the summer.

With water and sewer running from Stonewater all the way to the lake, it also opens up areas not yet annexed to the village to seek the same as a way to connect to those services.

There are “over 2,000 residential structures” that could benefit, Hilton said.