Oak Park Village Board of Trustees’ July proposal to demolish and rebuild historic Village Hall fell flat and a Facility Review Committee is now working to present an alternative option to refurbish it instead.
The original idea was to tear down the almost 50-year-old building and construct a new police station and village government headquarters in its place. The estimated cost would be between $118 million and $124 million, but demolition was met with strong public opposition.
It’s still a possibility, said Daniel Roush, co-chair of the Facility Review Committee, but refurbishing the existing structure by moving the police station to another location and making changes to support the municipal government’s modern needs is another option.
“We are a village that cares about history, and we care about the environment,” Roush said. “Those two things are embodied in the building that’s there. So, to maintain that building, at least as I see it, is aligned with the village values.”
Oak Park has engaged Johnson Lasky Kindelin Architects to evaluate Village Hall on a historic preservation and architectural level, according to the committee’s documents. JLK is examining the feasibility of renovating Village Hall to meet building, accessibility and energy codes, as well as to address security issues and functionality.
The committee plans to present its findings regarding feasibility and associated costs to the village board within the next couple months. If the board decides to adopt this alternative plan, deciding how to pay for it would be up to them, Roush said.
“The best place to start was ‘How the community will use the building?’” Colette Lueck, the committee’s co-chairperson said. “The building really belongs to the community, not to staff.”
The history and architecture of Village Hall makes the building interesting and essential to maintain, Lueck said, but remodeling will take time to complete, if the village board goes that route.
“Everything has to be welcoming to the community, places have to be safe,” she said. “People have to have accessibility to all places in the building except places that are set aside specifically for staff to do their work.”
Village Hall’s location also has a historical significance that is important to preserve, Roush said. The establishment’s location was intended support racial diversification and discourage any segregation between neighborhoods, he said.
“The building is a historical monument to Oak Park’s efforts to be a racially diverse and a tolerant community,” Roush said.
The police station has a lack of training and interview space in addition to a crammed system of storing evidence and records. This creates an intimidating environment, Lueck said.
“It would be much better for the people of Oak Park, across the board, if the police presence was visible and it was kind of a welcoming, or at least not a hostile circumstance,” Roush said.
Deciding where the new police station might be will not be part of the committee’s recommendations, Roush said, but he’s heard police officers say it’s essential to be close by and able to regularly communicate with village staff.
Safety is another concern, Lueck said, not only in terms of Americans with Disabilities Act standards, but also in terms of security. For example, the council chamber has seats that cascade down to where the board sits. If a situation were to emerge where the village board or other staff needed to leave quickly, they could end up trapped.
Village Hall’s daily energy use is another concern, Roush said, because of the amount it takes to light and heat the building. But building an entirely new structure would emit even more carbon, he said.
“The greenest building is the one that’s already built,” he said.
Local architect and facility review committee member Tom Bassett-Dilley said increasing energy efficiency and decarbonizing Village Hall is one of his priorities. In Climate Ready Oak Park, the village has called for a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. That’s not far away, he said.
Potential improvements include implementing a heat pump system, increasing insulation and installing better windows in Village Hall, Bassett-Dilley said. Some of these changes, however, will likely affect the historic material.
“But in my opinion, some change is necessary to meet our climate goals,” he said. “I think that we can do it sensitively [and] keep the character of the building.”
Each department in the municipal government has identified its needs for an updated Village Hall, Bassett-Dilley said, which are under consideration for the potential remodel option.
“One of our goals is really to have a building that we are all super proud of and we love to go to and makes us feel good about our community,” Bassett-Dilley said.
The next Facility Review Committee meeting will be at 6:30 p.m., Feb. 21 at Village Hall.