Oak Park village leaders have approved design concepts and construction costs for a Chicago Avenue streetscaping project that will honor famed Oak Parker Percy Julian.
The project will add artwork, historic installations, new sidewalk paving and other design elements to Chicago Avenue from Austin Boulevard to East Avenue — where the Julian home sits at the northwest corner. The project will also work to incorporate ideas from the village’s Vision Zero traffic safety plan, widening Chicago Avenues intersections at East Avenue, Ridgeland Avenue, Lombard Avenue and Humphrey Avenue while integrating the new design elements.
The board approved cost estimates putting the price tag for the project at over $5.3 million including contingencies. The village set aside $5 million for the project’s construction between fiscal years 2026 and 2027 in the capital improvement plan the board approved last November.
The board approved the plans unanimously.
“This is something we want people in our village informed about,” said Village President Vicki Scaman, a consistent proponent of the project. “The great life of Dr. Percy Julian and his wife Anna’s many accomplishments as well as their stories here in Oak Park.”
Julian became one of the most celebrated chemists and scientific entrepreneurs of the 20th century after discovering methods to synthesize medically important compounds from natural sources. This made possible the mass production of progesterone and other drugs effective for treating glaucoma, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer and many other ailments, according to the Science History Institute. Oak Park’s Percy L. Julian Middle School was named for him in the 1980s.
Julian, a Black man who grew up in Montgomery, Alabama under Jim Crow, was also a celebrated advocate for social justice, civil rights and racial progress in Chicagoland and beyond. Throughout his career, his labs employed many young Black chemists who were discriminated against elsewhere.
His wife, Anna Julian, was the first Black woman to earn a PhD in sociology in the U.S.
The family moved into the home on East Avenue in 1950 from Maywood, when Oak Park had few Black residents. Their home was attacked multiple times in efforts to intimidate the Julian’s out of the community.
Installations in different sections of the streetscape will highlight different aspects of Julian’s life, with one part focused on his family life, one section focused on his scientific breakthroughs and another on his activism.
The corridor will include a variety of different artistic elements including sculpture, on-street murals, banners and digital artwork. Things like benches, sidewalk pavement and light fixtures will be designed to evoke scientific imagery.
Trustees Jim Taglia and Derek Eder did express reservations over an augmented reality program pitched by consultants to go along with the physical installations. While it would allow visitors to interact with information that can’t fit on other displays, the program comes with a price tag of more than $600,000.
“I’ve seen some of those tools be done successfully, but I agree with Trustee Taglia that I don’t just see the justification for it,” Eder said. “I think about the uptake of such an app, you have to develop it and maintain it, it’s not just a one-time cost it’s an ongoing cost. I wonder if we’re trying to uplift Dr. Julian’s legacy and make it more visible, is an AR app the way to do it.”
Architectural design firm Planning Resources Inc., communications firm Prescott Group and engineering group TERRA Engineering are all serving as village consultants on the project. Work by the consultants on the project started shortly after Jan. 1 this year.
The corridor will share Chicago Avenue with several developing cultural districts on Chicago’s West Side, including Austin’s Soul City Corridor and Humboldt Park’s Invest South/West Humboldt Park Chicago Avenue Streetscape Project.
Board members said they hope that the project will be a boost for businesses in the corridor, a win for traffic safety in the village and that the work will pay off by elevating Julian’s legacy alongside other Oak Park icons like Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway.
“This a great treatment, I didn’t know quite what to expect but it exceeded my expectations both in vision and in cost,” said Trustee Cory Wesley.