Oak Park’s village board approved a revised plan for the Oak Park Avenue Streetscaping project that village leaders hope will help bring the project in under budget.
The revisions come after the village put the project out for bids at the start of the year and only received a response from one company — who’s bid came in nearly $5 million above the project’s $18 million budget. After a number of changes, the project is now estimated to come in at $17.66 million as the village seeks new bidders.
Oak Park’s village board approved the changes at its Aug. 5 meeting.
The large scale project is set to redesign the streetscape and overhaul the decades-old water and sewer systems underneath Oak Park Avenue between Ontario Street and Randolph Street.
When the project first went out to bid, village leaders had hoped that the project would be completed by Thanksgiving 2025. Construction is now targeted to begin in January 2026 and progress until at least the following November, Village Engineer Bill McKenna told the village board.
The village looked to save money by reeling in some of the more ambitious design elements before sending the project back out for bids.
The village cut over $300,000 from the project by doing away with plans for custom fencing, special lighting and granite pavers in the corridor. The lighting installation that was proposed to go in at Hunter Court would’ve projected animated artwork depicting things like aquarium scenes on the alley’s walls, McKenna said.
“We thought it was a novel and neat thing to include in the project but once we had prices, we pulled that back,” McKenna said. “There’s still decorative lighting and overhead lighting. We are not really sacrificing what that experience would be for the user, but there is a high dollar amount for the projected lighting.”
Staff also saved nearly $800,000 through other “miscellaneous adjustments” and by procuring materials that would’ve been more costly to pay contractors to obtain.
The village board cut the projects budget even more last week, by asking staff to use a cheaper material to pave new sidewalks. Instead of using Bluestone for the new sidewalks, the village will use concrete pavers that bring the overall cost of the project down by nearly $1 million.
Village President Vicki Scaman thanked McKenna and his team for revising the plan, as she hopes the renovations are not only essential from an infrastructure perspective but will ultimately be a boon to the Hemingway Business District that occupies this stretch of Oak Park Avenue.
“I commend you for the work that you did to bring that to us and cutting some of those luxury items potentially, but also items that down the road that we can always add, she said. Some of the things that are important to me about this project is that eventually we see this district really thriving, and there are some great businesses there already that have high energy, hosting events, increasing tourism, but some locations have been vacant for some time.”