Oak Park’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire a bank building to redevelop into a new police station took another step forward this week.
The village is looking to take over the U.S. Bank building located at 11 Madison St. with the plan to redevelop it into a long-promised new police headquarters. The building is only two blocks away from Oak Park Village Hall, where the Oak Park Police Department has been based for decades.
Oak Park’s village board sent notice requesting permission to use “quick take” eminent domain on the property to the state legislature and conducted a public hearing on the matter at its meeting Tuesday, Jan. 13.
U.S. Bank officials had said earlier this week that they were “disappointed” by Oak Park leaders’ plan to acquire and convert the bank’s Madison Street branch and voiced opposition to the plan again on Tuesday night. Officials said the bank never planned to close the branch when it listed the building for sale last year.
Abdel Daghlawi, a district manager and vice president for U.S. Bank who previously served as branch manager for the Madison Street location, told the village board about these intentions during the public hearing.
“Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the negative impact to our customers that will result from the village’s decision to take our local Oak Park branch via ‘quick take’ eminent domain, which is unquestionably the most aggressive and risky method of taking private property against the will of a property owner,” Daghlawi told the board. “To set the record straight, last year, we never listed our property on the private market to sell it so that we could leave Oak Park. Rather, we offered to sell the property on the private market under the clear and unequivocal condition that the buyer lease back the bank branch to U.S. Bank. We included this requirement because U.S. Bank is committed to Oak Park and our customers at this location. We do not want to leave or be forced to leave, and we are very disappointed with the village’s decision to take the bank’s property and force us to leave this location.”
While the building was listed for $2.65 million last year, bank officials said that it was always the corporation’s intention to keep the bank branch open by leasing space back from the building’s new owner, a strategy the company has employed regularly in recent years, officials said this week.
U.S. Bank told customers this week that it is exploring opportunities for a new bank location in the area if it loses its Madison Street location.
The branch, which has operated out of the building since 2009, is also home to mortgage advisor and wealth management staff not present at most bank locations, U.S. Bank officials said this week.
Two Oak Park residents spoke at the public hearing to voice support for the village’s acquisition plan. Oak Parker Chris Donovan said that Oak Park should put little stock in U.S. bank’s appeal, arguing that the bank hasn’t invested enough into the community or made up for its role in the subprime mortgage crisis of the 2000s.
“Given their track record is what it is, I hope you see them as the bad guys that I see them as,” he said.
Oak Park Village President Vicki Scaman gave props to Donovan’s analysis.
“Thank you for continuing to make my argument for me,” she said.
On Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2025, the village board had unanimously approved an ordinance allowing the village government to pursue a condemnation suit to acquire the property via eminent domain if a voluntary sale deal didn’t go through, according to village documents. At a special meeting dedicated to the police station project a week later, the board voted to endorse the acquisition as their preferred strategy for the police station project.
The building is approximately 37,000 square feet and already has its own parking lot, according to village documents.
The initial plan being pursued by the village would have constructed a new police station on the patch of grass south of Village Hall’s parking lot, with building costs expected to have eclipsed $80 million on top of the costs for the planned renovations to the Village Hall building.
The police department presently operates out of Village Hall’s basement, a space considered too small and outdated to suit the needs of a modern village police department. The village has been working to find a path to a new base of operations for the department for years.
Over the last decade, the village has spent millions on design work, kicked around several concepts and hired a new architect for the project.
But economic justice advocates have questioned how Oak Park’s gambit might impact low-income people in the region.
Horacio Mendez is president and CEO of the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based economic justice nonprofit focused on promoting fair lending, wealth creation and financial systems reform. Mendez, who also serves on the board of Wednesday Journal’s parent organization Growing Community Media, said his organization is troubled by the village’s push to acquire the bank branch.
Mendez said it’s become increasingly common for financial institutions to pursue lease back deals as technological advances mean that banking operations require less physical space.
“This strategy is one we’ve accepted given the enormous costs associated with owning and maintaining a large, traditional physical branch network,” Mendez said. “It’s not perfect, but it helps address the outright closure of an important community resource. Many branches are too big for how little they’re used, so some financial institutions try to become landlords by ‘right sizing’ their branches and leasing other space in the building. Others recognize that banks aren’t great at being commercial landlords, so they sell the building, lease back the space they want for their branch, and then allow someone who’s better at finding commercial tenants go to work leasing up the rest of the building.”
The branch’s location at the corner of Madison Street and Austin Boulevard means it’s positioned to serve many in Chicago’s Austin community and in nearby Berwyn, two areas with large minority and low-income populations often underserved by financial institutions, Mendez said.
“One thing we try to keep an eye on, especially in our home region of Chicago, is the national trend of branch closures in or near low- and moderate-income communities or majority minority communities,” Mendez told Wednesday Journal this week. “The U.S. Bank branch in your market is one we consider to be valuable in serving the Austin and Berwyn communities, both with significant low- and moderate-income residents and a large number of small businesses.”
“It’s pretty clear to me what will provide the surrounding community greater opportunity to thrive economically in the future if given the choice between a police station or a bank branch. It’s rare to have a community kick out a bank who wants to stay, but that seems to be the case with Oak Park.”
