The woman who expressed outrage over the construction of an apartment building next door to her home in downtown Brookfield and later sued the developer, her home’s former owners and their real estate agent has sold that home – for a profit.
Cook County property records show that Paulette Delcourt sold her home at 3710 Grand Blvd. in April to a corporation managed by Mike Healy, a local contractor who also owns the property immediately south at 3714 Grand Blvd.
Healy paid Delcourt $290,000 for the single-family home, which is $10,000 more than Delcourt paid for it in October 2019.
In her lawsuit, filed about a year ago in Cook County Circuit Court, Delcourt alleged that the former owners and their real estate agent misrepresented the property by not telling her of the impending development, which the village of Brookfield had approved in 2018 and which had been the subject of multiple news stories in the Landmark.
She also accused the developer of creating a nuisance and that construction had damaged her property. She also accused a concrete contractor of negligence, saying the foundation of the apartment building was poured partially on her property. The village of Brookfield was not party to the lawsuit.
In a phone interview with the Landmark, Healy said he contacted Delcourt privately soon after her predicament became a cause celebre on social media and resulted in news coverage in Brookfield and on TV.
Healy operates Healy Renovations at 8848 Ogden Ave., which specializes in single-family construction and remodeling. A longtime union carpenter, Healy has experience in commercial construction, but he said he plans to keep both 3710 Grand Blvd. and the two-flat he owns at 3714 Grand Blvd. as rental properties.
After buying the home from Delcourt, Healy advertised it on his company’s Facebook page for rent at $2,900 a month. It quickly found a tenant.
“I had 50 people clamoring for it,” said Healy of the home, which is smack in the middle of Brookfield Grand Boulevard commercial district near the Prairie Avenue Metra stop.
Healy said the two roughly century-old properties will remain rentals for the foreseeable future.
“I can’t say what the future will hold, but they’re quaint and they’re paying for themselves,” Healy said. “I’m trying to buy properties and occupy them for now, and we’ll see what comes up in the future.”
As for the three-story apartment building just a narrow sidewalk’s width from the north wall of 3710 Grand Blvd., that doesn’t bother Healy nearly as much as it bothered Delcourt.
“It’s downtown living,” he said.
Construction of the apartment building, meanwhile, is complete and the 17 one-bedroom units are already being marketed online in the range of $1,900 a month. More than five of the units reportedly have already been leased. The ground-floor commercial space does not yet have a tenant.
Delcourt referred questions regarding her pending litigation to her attorney, David Centracchio, who did not return calls from the Landmark.
However, at a status hearing in front of Cook County Circuit Court Judge Alison C. Conlan on June 28, attorneys indicated that Delcourt and the concrete contractor sued in the case have agreed on a settlement.
The remaining claims against other defendants will be handled by a judge in the Law Division of the court after Conlan, a Chancery Division judge, announced at the hearing she would transfer the case there.
