River Forest’s village board isn’t just targeting a big new development at Lake and Lathrop — there’s a growing plot of land just down the street at Park Avenue.
It’s owned by the village, and it’s conveniently right across the street from village hall. It never got a chance to shine as an independent project, though — the village piggybacked its request for proposals onto the Lake and Lathrop project.
What they got was a relatively plain, unexciting development — a proposal for a single-story retail space that was tacked onto the end of developer Keystone Ventures’ pitch for Lake and Lathrop.
But when the board bought a house next to the plot in July with TIF money, the move changed the property’s landscape.
So with several thousand more square feet added to the mix, the village is putting out a new request for proposals — this time, just for Park and Lake.
Village President John Rigas said he’s hoping the new proposal will take advantage of the new, bigger footprint.
There’s no rush on this project like there is at Lake and Lathrop, he said, since there probably won’t be any more TIF money spent on the project.
