Oak Park leaders have set a date to discuss designs and cost figures for the village’s long planned police station and Village Hall construction projects at a special meeting next month.
The special meeting is planned for Thursday, Nov. 20 at 6 p.m., according to the “tentative” village board meeting calendar published as part of the agenda for Oct. 14’s village board meeting.
Discussions on the current shape of the construction project, which is expected to top out at a cost of more than $100 million, have been delayed several times in recent months. The project is expected to deliver the Oak Park Police Department a new standalone police station — most likely on the patch of grass south of village hall’s parking lot — and include extensive renovations to the five decades old 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The police department presently operates out of village hall’s basement, a space considered too small and outdated to suit the needs of a modern village police department.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 since at least 2015, when it commissioned a property condition assessment on village hall.
Over the last decade, the village has spent millions on design work, kicked around several concepts for both building projects and hired a new architect. Village leaders still hope to break ground on the project next year, according to budget documents shared at a Finance Committee meeting this fall.
The previous village board had hoped to review plans for architectural designs and project financing at a March 18 meeting, the board’s last scheduled meeting before April 1’s municipal Cook County elections in which two then board members — Ravi Parakkat and Lucia Robinson — lost their seats. When that deadline passed, that board, which had been working on the project for years, still expected the opportunity to vote on the direction of the project during the board’s final lame duck session on Tuesday, April 30.
The Friday before that meeting, the discussion was cancelled.
Village Manager Kevin Jackson told Wednesday Journal at the time that the discussion was delayed to allow the village to ensure that the proposals prepared by its architect reflect village priorities in terms of both design and finances.
“It’s not a linear process where the consultants do the work and we just take it and say, ‘Here you go board.’ That’s why you have experts here on staff — to evaluate, opine and adjust,” Jackson told Wednesday Journal. “Our staff of experts are doing our due diligence on the analysis of the work produced so far by our consultant. They’ve done admirable, yeoman’s work; it’s just that we work together as a team. We’ve asked them to do certain things in terms of scope of work and then we go back-and-forth as we analyze it until we get a complete product.”
At that time, Jackson said the next board discussion of the designs and project costs would happen over the summer. The meeting is now set for a week before Thanksgiving.
This special meeting would come as the board is in the thick of finalizing Oak Park’s budget for next year. The board is expected to vote on adopting the final budget on Dec. 2, its next meeting following the special session and its last meeting of 2025.
Last week, Oak Park’s Finance Committee, which includes several sitting village trustees and Village President Vicki Scaman, discussed possible bond financing options for the project. That group also recently reviewed proposals for Capital Improvement Plan facility spending but tabled any discussion of the new police station and village hall renovation to a future special meeting.
Issues long expected to be addressed by the architect’s proposals include how will village hall be made more accessible to people with disabilities, how will parking at the facilities be impacted, what are the costs associated with both sides of the project and how can the village balance modernizing village hall while preserving its historical character.
“We’re really looking forward to what creative solutions come out of this, defining this idea of what open government looks like here for the next 50 years,” Village President Vicki Scaman told Wednesday Journal in April. “The issues on which they’re trying to creatively problem-solve haven’t really changed — they’ve been big problems.
“I trust that the seven members of the board are going to take what are continuing to be ingenious, creative ideas to solve that problem.”