Oak Park’s plan commission took a peek into the future of Roosevelt Road earlier this month.
The commission heard from consultants working on the Roosevelt Road Corridor Plan, the new economic development and streetscaping plan that Oak Park’s village government and the Berwyn Development Corporation are developing together. The plan will look to boost residential development, support local businesses and improve road safety along the thoroughfare, which serves as a defining border for suburban Oak Park, Berwyn and Cicero.
Last March, Oak Park’s village board approved a contract worth $100,000 for The Lakota Group, a project management and urban design firm that had helped develop Oak Park’s Pleasant District streetscaping project, to help develop the plan.
“It’ll help encourage investment along the corridor and bring momentum to the process of revitalizing the corridor,” said Alexis Stein of the Lakota Group. “The plan is to create a more cohesive corridor with a greater sense of identity, one that people want to walk down, a safer corridor. We also wanted to focus on economic vibrancy, addressing the vacancies, supporting a more diverse set of businesses. Finally, we wanted to focus on collaboration and communication, making sure the two communities have the tools they need to work together going forward.”
“We’re making sure this is a place where people really want to spend time.”
Engagement efforts since work on the project began have strived to get equal input from Berwyn and Oak Park residents, as the Lakota Group conducted 17 focus group interviews and held two open houses for the project.
“Community engagement during this process has been incredible, there’s been so many engaged residents, business owners, property owners that are excited about this process,” Stein said. “That just tells us that when this goes to be implemented the community is really going to be behind you.”
Ideas that consultants have presented to residents for the project include adding more crosswalks on Roosevelt Road, building curb bump outs at busy intersections, adding flashing lights to new pedestrian crossings, adding trees and public art to the corridor, utilizing vacant lots for regular events and supporting “Main Street style” mixed use development along the road.
The Roosevelt Road border between Oak Park and Berwyn has long been a target for development, as this plan comes 20 years after the communities jointly-adopted the “Plan for the Redevelopment of Roosevelt Road” in March 2005. That plan, which took four years to finalize, was “the first-ever comprehensive redevelopment study of this corridor,” according to Oak Park documents.
The full report is expected to go before Oak Park’s village board in the coming weeks.