Oak Park’s village board unanimously approved a new economic development plan for Roosevelt Road this week, but it’ll take “a lot of effort” in order for it make an impact, village leaders said.
The board heard from a team of consultants that spent the last year working on “the Roosevelt Road Corridor Plan,” the new economic development and streetscaping plan sponsored by Oak Park’s village government and the Berwyn Development Corporation. The plan will look to boost residential development, support local businesses and improve road safety and pedestrian access along the bustling thoroughfare, which serves as a defining border for suburban Oak Park, Berwyn and Cicero.
Last March, Oak Park’s village board approved $50,000 in funding 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. Berwyn also pledged $50,000 for the study, according to village documents.
Safety, beautification and economic development solutions that consultants presented included 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 or outdoor dining and supporting “Main Street style” mixed-use development along the road.
“We’re trying to achieve cohesion along the corridor, making it seem like a district, a destination from west to east and east to west,” said Alexis Stien of the Lakota Group.
Work on the project included field studies of the corridor and 17 focus group interviews with Berwyn and Oak Park residents. There were also two open houses for the project, according to the consultants.
The Roosevelt Road border between Oak Park and Berwyn has long been a target for hoped 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.
Implementing this new development plan will require a heightened level of collaboration between Oak Park and Berwyn, Trustee Chibuike Enyia said.
“How do we have these larger conversations, having that conversation around what we mutually want to see with this space,” he said. “Whether that’s with the growing of the arts, continuing with safety and building up mutually beneficial buildings and how each side of the street is developed. I want to see all of that done in the area because my neighbors are asking for it.”
“I feel like Roosevelt is one of the most trafficked parts of Oak Park but that doesn’t matter if no one stops and stays.”
Trustee Brian Straw said that inter-municipal collaboration has been a barrier that’s led to parts the 2005 plan going unimplemented. That cycle can’t be repeated if the corridor is going to be revitalized, he said.
“Actually, setting up agreements whereby each of the municipalities involved cooperate and have a plan for maintenance is really important because otherwise it’s a temporary solution, it’s lipstick on a pig,” Straw said. “I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the plan and I do believe if we’re able to execute on this we could see Roosevelt Road come back to life, because I think right now it’s a very confusing stretch to go down. There are some blocks where you’ll say,‘this is incredible,’ and then you get a block or two down and you’re saying, ‘this is not a place where I want to be.’ I think we can get there but it’s not going to be easy, I think it’s going to take a lot of time a lot of effort and a lot of communication.”