A ten-unit apartment building sits across the street from the Westmont Metra platform right now, working its way through a court-ordered trustee sale. Four two-bedroom units, six one-bedrooms. The landlord covers boiler heat, water, common electric, and garbage. Tenants pay their own electric. It is the kind of unglamorous, cash-flowing small multifamily property that has quietly built wealth for owners in this corner of DuPage County for decades.
That building sits inside the exact two-block radius the Village of Westmont is rezoning right now, and inside the same radius where a developer wants to build 119 brand-new rental units aimed at the same commuters. If you own a 2-6 unit building near Cass and Burlington, or you're shopping for one, both of those facts belong in your underwriting. Most coverage of Westmont's zoning news treats it as unambiguous good news for property owners. It isn't. It's a trade, and the terms depend on where your parcel lines fall.
The rezoning everyone read as good news
In August 2025, the Village Board approved a comprehensive rewrite of Westmont's zoning ordinance after nearly two years of hearings. The update created two new downtown districts: B-1(A) Downtown Core and R-7 Downtown Residential, and renamed the old B-1 Limited Business District to Downtown Edge. Mayor Steve Nero called it a much-needed update that would help property owners and developers succeed in Westmont.
That was the framework. The actual work of drawing new lines on the map started in 2026. A Planning & Zoning Commission public hearing on June 10, 2026 covered the B-1(A) proposal for properties along Cass Avenue between Richmond and Norfolk Streets, plus a block along Burlington Avenue and Quincy Street. Community Development Director Joe Hennerfeind explained the logic this way:
"The goal of these zoning changes is to acknowledge that our downtown, while small in size, is not all the same. The new districts will provide focus on density near the train station, as well as accommodate the varying residential housing types along Burlington Avenue and Quincy Street."
The residential piece matters most for small multifamily owners. Properties along the tracks are currently zoned R-5 General Residence, which already permits everything from a single detached house to a multi-unit building. R-7 is built to push new construction toward row homes instead, following a 2013 Comprehensive Plan finding that attached housing fits best along the rail corridor. If your parcel gets swept into R-7, the legal ceiling on what you can build there goes up. If it doesn't, you keep the zoning you already have.
That distinction, in or out, is the whole ballgame. The Village has not finished mapping every parcel, and the process still has to clear the Planning & Zoning Commission's recommendation and a final vote by the Village Board of Trustees before anything is final.
Two blocks away, someone is already building the competition
While the Village sorts out zoning lines, a developer isn't waiting. Holladay Properties, based in Portage, Indiana, wants to build a 119-unit, five-story complex called Sentinel Station at 1 N. Cass Avenue, on what is currently a village parking lot northeast of Cass and Burlington. The plan includes a restaurant, 120 indoor parking spaces, a 45-space surface lot, a pet spa, a fitness center, a clubhouse, and an outdoor amenity deck. The project is explicitly framed as transit-oriented, built around train commuters rather than families looking for yard space.
Sentinel Station would sit directly across the railroad tracks from Quincy Station, a five-story building Holladay already developed, whose ground floor is home to Whiskey Hill Brewery & Kitchen. Put the two projects side by side and you can see the shape of what's coming to that block.
| Property | Units | Type | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| The 10-unit building near the platform | 10 (mixed 1BR/2BR) | Existing walk-up, landlord-paid utilities | Long-term renters, value-conscious |
| Quincy Station | Existing 5-story | Built by Holladay, ground-floor retail | Commuters, amenity-seeking renters |
| Sentinel Station (proposed) | 119 | New 5-story, pet spa, fitness center, clubhouse | Commuters, amenity-seeking renters |
The existing ten-unit building and the two Holladay projects are not competing for the same tenant on paper. In practice, anyone renting a one-bedroom near a Metra platform is comparing options within a few blocks of each other, and 119 new units is a lot of comparison shopping for a small landlord's rent roll to absorb.
What "average rent" doesn't tell you right now
If you search for the average rent in Westmont, you will get a different number depending on which site you check. Some portals put a one-bedroom in the mid-$1,600s. Others land closer to $1,900 or $2,000. The spread isn't a data error. Small suburban rental markets don't have enough active listings at any given moment for these aggregators to converge, and each one samples a different slice of buildings, lease terms, and timing.
That noise matters more in Westmont right now than it would in a market with stable supply, because a trailing average calculated from last month's listings says nothing about what happens once 119 new units start leasing up a few blocks from the station. Whatever the average rent is today, it is a number about to move, and no portal can tell you which direction until Sentinel Station actually opens and starts pricing units. The number that matters for underwriting an existing building near downtown is not a citywide average. It's the actual asking rent on the two or three closest comparable buildings, pulled from real listings or your agent's MLS rental data, updated as new supply comes online.
The land value trade a small owner is actually making
Here is the mechanism worth sitting with. R-7 raises what's legally buildable on a parcel along the tracks, which can raise that parcel's value to a developer looking to assemble land for row homes. If your existing 2-6 unit building sits inside the new district boundary, that's a real, potentially significant increase in what your dirt is worth on paper.
But that upside is a redevelopment value, not a rental income value. It only pays off if you sell to someone who tears down and rebuilds, or if you redevelop the site yourself. If you plan to keep operating the building as-is and collecting rent, the more immediate effect of everything happening around you is new, professionally managed supply competing for your tenants. Land value and rent income can move in opposite directions at the same time, and a rezoning announcement tends to get reported as good news for owners without separating the two.
The Village is also actively reshaping the physical geometry of this block. East Burlington Avenue's "S-curve" was relocated roughly 150 feet east this year, aligning it with North Linden Avenue and creating a larger, more developable parcel between Cass and Linden. That kind of quiet infrastructure move usually signals which corners the Village expects redevelopment to land on first.
The entry price still works in your favor
Whatever happens with rents over the next year or two, Westmont's basis advantage over its BNSF neighbors hasn't gone away. Redfin data for the three months ending June 2026 put Westmont's median home sale price at $430,000, up 1.5% year over year, with homes averaging four offers and going under contract in about 40 days. A separate March 2026 comparison across the same BNSF corridor put Westmont's median at $442,000 against $473,000 in Downers Grove and roughly $1.7 million in Hinsdale.
That gap is the reason Westmont works as an entry point for small investors in the first place. A lower basis means a lower breakeven rent, which matters more, not less, if new supply puts near-term pressure on what you can charge. An owner who bought at Hinsdale prices has far less room to absorb a soft rent comp than one who bought into Westmont's mid-$400,000s market.
What to check before you write an offer near downtown
- Whether your specific parcel, or the one you're considering, falls inside the proposed B-1(A) or R-7 boundary, not just "somewhere downtown." The Village's rezoning maps show exact lines.
- Actual rent comps from the two or three nearest comparable buildings, not a citywide portal average.
- Who pays which utility in the current rent roll. The ten-unit building's landlord-pays-heat structure changes true net operating income compared to a tenant-pays-everything setup.
- Where the parcel sits relative to the East Burlington Avenue realignment and the larger assembled lot it created.
- The current status of the Village Board's final vote on the rezoning, since a Planning & Zoning Commission recommendation is not the same as an approved map.
FAQ
Does R-7 change what I can do with my building today? Not until your specific parcel is formally rezoned. Until the Village Board acts on a parcel-by-parcel basis, existing R-5 zoning still applies.
Will Sentinel Station's rents undercut nearby small multifamily buildings? That depends on lease-up pace and how the developer prices new construction against existing stock. New buildings typically launch at a premium to older walk-ups, but a fast lease-up at a discount to fill units quickly would tell a different story. Worth tracking once leasing opens.
Is there a set date for the final rezoning decision? As of the June 2026 hearing, the proposal was still moving through Planning & Zoning Commission review ahead of a Village Board vote. No final date had been set at that point.
If you're weighing a 2-6 unit purchase or sale near downtown Westmont and want help separating the redevelopment story from the rent-roll story, Edgar Guerrero can walk through the actual numbers for your specific parcel. Get a Free Home Valuation and we'll start with what your building is worth under the zoning you have today, not the zoning someone hopes you'll get.
