With the announcement last week that U.S. Bank will close its location in the historic bank building at 104 N. Oak Park Ave. questions turn to the future of the 104-year-old structure.
Mitch Goltz, principal of Chicago-based GW Properties, bought the building in 2023 for $5.02 million. He said Monday that the bank’s lease expires in January, but it hasn’t given any indication that it will reup.
“They’ve been quite quiet,” Goltz said, adding that, “We haven’t made any decisions yet. We’re in the midst of redeveloping it, the bank is still in there and we’re seeking tenants.”
In an email message last week to its Oak Park customers, U.S. Bank announced it would close the Oak Park Avenue location on Oct. 1.
For years, U.S. Bank has rented the entire space then leased out the portions of the property not used by the bank to other entities.
“We’re in talks with each of them entering into new leases, but it’s very fluid,” Goltz said.
Currently the building has a combination of commercial tenants and vacant retail space on the ground floor and some office tenants on the upper floor.
Goltz said 104 N. Oak Park Ave. “has been a beautiful bank building for 100 years.”
The most intriguing leasable space in the bank building is its two-story interior facing banking space. Elegant and oversized, the future use of that space is to be determined.
Frank Lipo, executive director of the Oak Park River Forest Museum, said groundbreaking for the Avenue State Bank building began in 1919, with its grand opening in February 1921. The original Avenue State Bank opened in 1899 and its first building was next door.
That structure is also known as Scoville No. 1, named for James Scoville, who owned the land where the first water reservoir in Oak Park was built. He drilled nine artesian wells, Lipo said, and launched a private utility, Cicero Gas, Water & Light Company, which became the village’s water supply from 1880 to 1912, when it began buying Lake Michigan water.
Meanwhile, Avenue State Bank was one of 17 banks in Oak Park prior to the Great Depression, and one of only five that survived the economic calamity. Avenue State Bank was in business until it was acquired by First Colonial Bankshares Corp. in the mid-1980s. First Colonial was then acquired by Firstar Bank in the mid-1990s, which became U.S. Bank in 2002.
In recent years, U.S. Bank has closed multiple other local branches including at Austin and North Avenue, Austin and Roosevelt Road and Madison and Des Plaines in Forest Park. It continues to operate facilities at Austin and Madison Street and on North Avenue.
Lipo said that any building exterior alterations would have to go through the village’s Historic Preservation Commission.
According to Atefa Ghaznawi, an urban planner focused on historic preservation for the village, the U.S. Bank building is not considered a landmark, but instead is a historic building. This means that any changes to the building’s exterior would require a certificate of appropriateness for historical material from the village. If the material is not historical, it would require an advisory review.
“Historic buildings like this are one of a kind,” Ghaznawi said. “It’s a neoclassical architectural style, a distinctive element. It brings value and character. This is a source of pride.”
Lipo added that his hope is that any redevelopment would “keep the historical aspect, but blend that with what the new tenants will do.”