The next step in the redevelopment of Downtown Oak Park appears to be the northeast corner of Lake Street and Forest Avenue, now home to the Original Pancake House and CertifiedLand Grocers.
Owners of the corner property showed plans at village hall that included redevelopment and expansion of the village’s L-shaped parking garage, which practically surrounds the corner, and a church-owned parking lot to the east. The proposal conforms with zoning on the site.
Development of the corner is pegged in the village’s Greater Downtown Master Plan as one of five catalyst projects that will spur private development and reinvesting in Oak Park’s primary shopping district.
“We are anxious to get going,” said Jim Prescott, spokesman for owner/developer Sertus Capital Partners LLC, which bought the corner property last spring for $9 million. “We want to take time and work through the process. We want to hear the community. But what we are contemplating is within the master plan for downtown.”
The village’s L-shaped garage essentially surrounds the corner property at Forest and Lake.
Sertus would not release preliminary sketches for the site, and Village Manager Tom Barwin sent the drawings back to the developer after he got word from the village board that it didn’t want to see the plan until the public feedback process began.
That process begins next week with a public meeting at 7 p.m. on March 14, at the Nineteenth Century Club, 178 Forest Ave. The village is billing it as “a presentation on what makes great architecture,” with live keypad voting to cull immediate feedback. “Great architecture” has been a consistent thread in discussions about downtown, Barwin said, so taking an evening to help define it should help Sertus.
“We want great architecture, too,” Prescott said. “It is a highly visible location, a gateway to downtown.”
In terms of the meeting, though, citizens should have “an understanding that this is not a white board discussion” where everyone gets to throw up broad concepts for the site, Prescott said. “The parameters [of what can be built] have some definition already. We’re working within those parameters.”
The meeting will give citizens a chance to review zoning on the three properties and discuss potential uses for the site, according to a village statement. “It should be a fast-paced, interesting evening,” Barwin said. The village is required to begin the public input process before negotiating with the developer as part of its participatory planning process.
Although zoning for the corner site allows heights up to 125 feet, as recommended in the master plan, the village board lowered heights on Lake Street to 80 feet to match the height of the Marshall Field (Borders) Building. Zoning heights step down going east on Lake Street and going north on Forest.
The $9 million price for the site included a $3 million seller-financed contingency based on how the project moves ahead, Prescott said.
Sertus, led by Elmwood Park-native Michael Glazier, signed a contract to buy the Grace Episcopal Church parking lot and add it to the development. That agreement took several months to negotiate and was reached last May or June, Prescott said.
So far, Sertus has worked only through Barwin in developing plans for the site.
Prescott said he expects approval for the project to take the “better part of this year,” but also said tenants in the corner building are all on month-to-month leases. “We are in a position to move quickly.”
Affordable housing has not come up in discussions with the village to this point, Prescott said. Financial details have not been negotiated, but “it would be inaccurate to say that Sertus is looking for any [village] subsidy,” Prescott said.
The developer’s approach, so far, is to combine the three properties-the corner (954 Lake St.), the parking garage, and church parking lot-but “it could be done separately,” Prescott said.
The master plan calls for “anchor retail” at the site and gives general suggestions for ground-floor retail, a rebuilt garage and condos or apartments above. Prescott said condos would likely be marketed to “entry- and exit-level buyers”: singles, young couples, young families or empty-nesters.
Prescott said the developer has reviewed documents on the existing building at the Historical Society of Oak Park-River Forest, village hall, and the Art Institute and can’t find any evidence of historic or architectural noteworthiness.
However, the building is listed as a “structure of merit” in the village’s July 2005 survey of downtown buildings. Today there is no protection of historic buildings downtown. Ongoing talks are supposed to yield a compromise on possible historic designations downtown, but those talks will continue at least through September.
Grace Episcopal, approaching its 100th year, sees the sale of its parking lot as a way “to set the church up to survive and thrive for the next 100 years,” according to a church statement.
“An improved financial base and additional endowment income will allow us to devote more resources to some or all of the following: outreach and formation ministries, evangelism, clergy and other staff, completion of the nave restoration, clergy housing provision, repair/redevelopment of the Parish Hall.”
In recent years the church has devoted resources to restoration of its building, designed by architect John Sutcliffe, and is in the final stages of a capital campaign that yielded more than $500,000.
Mike O’Neal, a church representative, would not disclose the terms of the purchase contract, but said the sale would be “a meaningful amount of money.”
The church also sees the sale as a gathering of rosebuds. “It is virtually inevitable that the area west of our property will be redeveloped in the near future,” the statement reads. “By participating we can receive a substantial financial benefit and have some influence over the nature of the development as it affects us.”
Although both developer and village representatives said they are not dependent on the other to get what they want in the development, they agreed that both sides can win.
“This can be a tremendous opportunity,” Prescott said.
CONTACT: dcarter@wjinc.com
