A part-time weight loss clinic will operate out of a former pharmacy building in Oak Park on a stretch of Roosevelt Road targeted for development.
Tatanisha Funches, a local nurse practitioner, received approval from Oak Park’s Zoning Board of Appeals last week to open a medical clinic at 6142 Roosevelt Rd., once occupied by a pharmacy. The zoning board was scheduled to hear another proposal for another new business on the same block, a new banquet hall and event venue at 6136, but the board’s vote on that matter was tabled to a future meeting.
The weight loss clinic will operate out of a second-floor suite in the building, while the first-floor area once occupied by Segreti Pharmacy remains vacant.
Funches said her clinic, which is to be called Funches Healthcare, will provide outpatient care, preventive medicine and chronic condition management care for patients with obesity.
“I’m building it from the ground up to help people, especially with managing diseases,” Funches told the zoning board.
Funches said that she has another full-time job, so she plans to open the clinic on Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The 6100 block of Roosevelt Road has been eyed for increased development in recent years, as Oak Park and Berwyn leaders look to boost economic action, walkability and traffic safety along their municipal border through a Roosevelt Road Corridor Plan. The busy stretch of road currently has a high rate of business vacancies.
A previous version of a municipal Roosevelt Road development plan adopted by Oak Park back in 2005, mentioned vacancies on the 6100 block of Roosevelt Road as a pressing issue.
The medical clinic is at the other end of the 6100 block from the future site of a village-subsidized affordable housing apartment complex. East Coast-based affordable housing developer the Community Builders received $700,000 from Oak Park’s affordable housing fund last February to construct a 28-unit apartment building at 6140 Roosevelt Rd.
That property, a vacant lot that was once a gas station, has been in limbo over the last year, as land owner Yves Hughes sought village approval to build, then promptly tear down, an electric vehicle charging station in order to satisfy the terms of the deal he’d made with the Cook County Land Bank to acquire the lot before selling it to The Community Builders.
Oak Park’s village board denied his request last October, with Trustee Brian Straw calling it a “massive waste.”
“This is not a useful development; this is just a small investment to recoup $300,000 in land prospecting,” Straw said. “Had the applicant followed through with the terms of his deed in a timely manner that would be one thing, but he did not.”
Hughes still owns the lot, according to a search of Cook County land records