‘Motor caves,’ drive-up boat storage proposed for Johnsburg’s long-idle Paradise Cove property

Mike Oliver doesn’t remember a time when the restaurant and nightclub along the Fox River in Johnsburg wasn’t a run-down ruin.

The McHenry resident hopes to bring Paradise Cove back to life starting later this year. On Wednesday, Oliver presented Johnsburg’s Planning and Zoning Commission with plans for a new, “north of $30 million” development for the 22-acre site at 3309 N. Chapel Hill Road that has been sitting mostly idle since the late 1990s.

Where there is now the shell of a building, Oliver proposes what he calls Hidden Harbor. With this development, he’d knock down the old restaurant and nightclub in favor of an expanded marina with 62 boat slips, four “motor cave” car condo buildings, drive-up boat storage and a retail building. The existing Waterfront Hotel and restaurant would remain, and along the riverfront Oliver envisions an ice cream shop, pedestrian path, playground and splash pad open to the public.

“We want to provide a mini version of the McHenry Riverwalk” for Johnsburg, he told the commission and about 50 residents who came to hear and comment on the plans.

“We want to provide a mini version of the McHenry Riverwalk.”

—  Mike Oliver, founder of the Hidden Harbor development

Over the past 25 years, others have spent millions “trying to revive this property and have thrown in the towel,” Oliver said. “The current situation on the property is terrible.”

In 2006, Chicago-based development firm Millennium Marketing & Development received village approval for a 6,000-square-foot restaurant, 116 condominiums, 156 townhouses and 140,000 square feet of commercial space. That 108-acre proposal stretched from the river to Coolidge Avenue west of Chapel Hill Road, and included single-family homes on the east side of Chapel Hill Road south of Bay Road.

By 2007, the contract to purchase Paradise Cove had lapsed, according to Northwest Herald reports at the time.

In 2013, Mario Arcari purchased the site and later spent $1 million renovating the hotel, renaming it The Waterfront Hotel & Marina. He built out what was basement storage space facing the Fox River into The Wave Bar & Grille. Plans were to do something about the falling-down restaurant – last known as JuggerDoon’s – next door. Arcari died in 2018. The restaurant closed, but the hotel has continued to operate.

Oliver, 37, is a superintendent for a commercial construction company and has experience with redevelopment. He does not have the funding to build out Hidden Harbor himself, Oliver said, but is working with investors.

“I am not a multimillionaire,” Oliver said. His plans call for building the boat storage in the first phase of construction. The idea is income from those monthly rentals will then pay for phase two, what he calls motor caves.

Commonly called “car condos,” they are a space for car and power sports fans to store their collections. They come with bathrooms and can include kitchens and even home office space. They are purchased by the owners and are “slightly cheaper than buying home on the riverfront,” Oliver said, starting in the mid-$300,000 range. Finished units or those combining more than one condo unit could cost $1 million.

To allow car condos, Johnsburg would need to amend its zoning ordinance, permitting them as a conditional use in a B-2 business district. Questions about car condos and enforcing a rule that they’re not to be lived or slept in pushed a vote on the amendment and on Oliver’s plans to May 14.

Commissioner Ken Calhoun asked if fines can be included if car condo owners spend the night “to make sure it does not become a residence somehow?”

As a non-home rule municipality, Johnsburg could impose only a $750-a-day fine, village attorney Michael Smoron said.

One resident said she was concerned about the cost of relocating a road as part of the development. Laura King said she spoke with the McHenry County Division of Transportation and that office indicated that Salem Avenue would need to be relocated to the south, so it meets Chapel Hill at Bay Road.

“We are still working through complexities with McDOT,” Oliver said.

After the meeting, Oliver said he plant to discuss possible development incentives with the Village Board.

“We do think they should incentivize us, with this level of development in town,” Oliver said.

If ultimately approved by the Johnsburg Village Board, construction could begin this fall for a mid-summer 2026 opening date for the boat storage portion, Oliver said.