Garage condos for high-end car collectors planned for Lake Zurich
A former professional race car driver who’s now a real estate developer is revving the engine of his latest project, a plan to build luxurious garage condos where car buffs can house and show off their vehicles.
Romeo Kapudija’s proposal to put 121 garage condos, a clubhouse and a niche brand car dealership on a 21-acre site on Rand Road received approval from Lake Zurich’s village board Nov. 17. He expects to start construction in early spring and have a little less than half the units, with prices starting at $549,000, and the dealership ready for occupancy by the end of 2026.
Luxe Corsa, as the project is called, won’t be the first garage condos in the Chicago area. There are already similar developments in Naperville, Mundelein and Joliet, and more proposed in Barrington and far west suburban Gilberts.
But Kapudija sees an open lane for his project, thanks in part to the popularity of Formula 1 racing, the Netflix series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” and, to a lesser extent, NASCAR.
“More and more people are getting involved in watching motor sports,” said Kapudija, whose racing career was mostly in the early 2000s. At a certain income level, “they’re investing in cars,” he said, some of which “show a better return than the S&P.”
About 40 of the Lake Zurich units are already under contract to buyers, Kapudija said. Most of the pre-sold units are the bigger floorplan, 2,430 square feet with room for six to eight cars and priced from $699,000, he said. The smaller units, about 1,860 square feet with room for four to five cars, are priced from $549,000. On top of the purchase price, unit owners will pay an average of $500 a month in HOA fees that help fund joint amenities, including a bourbon bar, a cigar lounge, office space for remote work and an 8,000-square-foot event space.
Designed by OKW, a Chicago architecture firm, the 13-building complex “will feel like you’re in Las Vegas, not Lake Zurich,” Kapudija said. The panelized exteriors will have abundant lighting and sizzle, and each garage condo’s interior will have ground-level space for cars and a mezzanine level above that owners can finish with a kitchen or other features (separate from the purchase price).
If all goes as planned, Lake Zurich should be the first to open of three planned Luxe Corsa developments. Kapudija said Luxe Corsa is also building in Miami and seeking the requisite approvals for a Phoenix installation. He said financing for all of them is in hand, a private investment from a family. He declined to identify the family or say how much the Luxe Corsa projects will cost to build.
Luxe Corsa might also beat two Chicago-area garage condo developments proposed last year.
A project called MotorCaves in Barrington, whose developer told Crain’s in June 2024 he hoped to start construction that fall, does not appear to have started yet, though the developer, Joe Taylor, could not immediately be reached.
In Gilberts, developer Cliff Cadle told Crain’s late last year he hoped to start construction in early 2025. Today, he said he hopes to start construction in early 2026.
One key to Kapudija’s confidence in his plan despite the slowdown on the others, he said, is that he has private funding lined up. The number of Luxe Corsa units already under contract months ahead of groundbreaking is another cause for confidence. Some of that demand, he believes, is transferred from the other projects. As they idle, “we’re benefitting,” he said.
Also working in his favor: the Chicago area is under-supplied with garage condos, according to a Colorado-based developer who sold out a 35-unit garage condo development in Mundelein in 2024. In his home base, Denver, “you have maybe 20 or 30” garage condo developments, John Victor told Crain’s last year, but Chicago, with a metro-area population more than three times Denver’s, has fewer than six. The count is not certain because of the unclear status of Barrington’s MotorCaves.
Garage condo buyers, Victor told Crain’s, “are affluent people who need a place for their toys, and they’ll pay to get it.” He said prices at his Mundelein project called Big Door went up by at least 20% in the four-year sales program. Victor also said the few resales so far have been profitable for their sellers, but he declined to provide figures.
While Kapudija is only now steering into garage condos, he’s an experienced developer, going back to the early 2000s, when he converted an old Boy Scout merit badge factory in Ukrainian Village and a shuttered Catholic church in the same neighborhood into condos. He later spearheaded a condo development in Pilsen, and in more recent years built 23 lakefront townhomes in Lake Zurich whose prices started at $749,000 and topped out at a little more than $1 million. That project, called the Sanctuary, sold out in 2023.
Link to full article from Crain’s here → “Garage Condos for High-End Car Collectors Planned for Lake Zurich”