Former Copley Hospital in Aurora.

Commercial and residential development continues in Aurora despite COVID-19 complications that have closed many businesses and schools and forced people to stay at home.

Representatives of properties ranging from former downtown office buildings to the Route 59 commercial corridor offered updates during a Zoom conference call last week arranged by the City of Aurora.

‘Nobody has the right answers for how to deal with (COVID-19) other than to stay safe and employ social distancing,” said Harish Ananthapadmanabhan, partner in a firm restoring two downtown structures. “(But) we’re still are able to meet our schedules. The clock is still ticking and team still doing their work. We tried to exercise the caution as well as moving forward. We’re making sure we deliver as we promised.”

Ananthapadmanabhan joined five other panelists — representing more than $200 million in investment in Aurora — for the latest in a series of online COVID-19 conversations hosted by Aurora Mayor Richard C. Irvin.

“Aurora is still open for business,” Irvin said. “(The panelists) are leading the way with new commercial, residential and mixed-use developments throughout our city and redeveloping properties that have sat vacant for decades — in some cases 60 years — and bringing them back to life.”

Russ Woerman, a partner in a massive reinvention of the former Copley Hospital site, has nearly 200 people currently at work on that and another Aurora project. He’s also helping lift the local economy with orders for material and services.

“We’re buying materials. We’re getting all our gravel locally from Geneva Construction and we’re getting all of our plumbing from Meyer Plumbing,” he said. “We’re trying to support Aurora, trying to make it our city.  There’s so much support here for people like us to come here and do development.”

The Hobbs Building

Woerman and Michael Poulakidas, partners in Fox Valley Developers and Metro West Developers, are spearheading the $128 million Copley revival southeast of downtown.  The redeveloped site, vacant for the past 25 years, will soon be home to senior housing, apartments for adults with autism, park space as well as headquarters for East Aurora School District 131.

Ananthapadmanabhan and Jay Punkukollo are partners in JH Real Estate, a firm busy restoring Aurora’s historic Hobbs Building, noted for a rooftop cupola. Nearby, tenants are already occupying their other downtown project, the former Aurora National Bank building.

The cities of Rockford and Aurora share characteristics as older river towns of similar size featuring a stock of vintage buildings that are now being revived.

“We’re the leading historic rehabilitation company in Illinois,” said Jeff Orduno, chief operating officer and general counsel for Urban Equity Properties, one of the catalysts for downtown Rockford’s revival. “We’re building mixed-use properties, basically taking the top floors of those buildings and turning them into luxury loft apartments and turning the ground floor into a restaurant,”

The firm is renovating the Terminal Building on Broadway into 20 apartments and reviving the historic Keystone Building on Stolp Ave., creating 31 residential units and commercial/restaurant space on the first floor.

On Aurora’s far East Side, Pacifica Square, an 362,000-square-foot Asian-centric shopping, entertainment and dining space is taking shape at the northwest corner of Illinois Route 59 and New York St.

“The (nearby) Fox Valley Mall brings in millions of dollars every year for the city of Aurora and we want to be part of that golden corridor and to bring in Asian flavor — we call Asian Cool,” said Cristal Zheng, an architect. “The anchor store will be a 50,000 square foot Asian supermarket, one of biggest Asian supermarkets in the Midwest. We’re looking into probably be open in late June or early July because of a delay due to COVID-19. Some of the restaurants are already (partially) open.”

Windfall Group is redeveloping the former Yorkshire Square property into the largest Asian lifestyle center in the United States. Plans call for office and residential space to be added later.