MPC brings mayors and members of the Campaign for Sensible Growth and ULI Chicago to the same table. The result? Experts weighing in on local challenges in south suburban Park Forest and Riverdale.
Park Forest, a model community planned and built by
development pioneer Phil Klutznick in 1959, is once again a leader in
development trends. The village was
once home to the Chicago region’s first regional shopping mall, the Park Forest
Plaza, which had over 500,000 square feet of retail space and included
department stores Marshall Field’s and Sears. After the mall failed in the early 1990s, the
Village could not allow the center of its community continue to whither. It purchased the mall in
1995 and is working to convert it into a suburban downtown.
On July 30 and 31, a partnership of the Urban Land Institute
(ULI) Chicago and the Campaign for Sensible Growth organized a technical
assistance panel of 10 experts in real estate, retail, housing, market analysis, planning
and development. Their task? To figure out
the "how."
The panel, chaired by John Mays, former
chair of ULI Chicago, reviewed stacks of Park Forest’s planning documents including
comprehensive plans, consultant studies, demographic information and maps in
preparation for their assignment. The experts spent two full
days on site in an area near the former mall known as DownTown
Park Forest, evaluating the market and developing recommendations, interviewing
community leaders, business owners and local residents, and walking through the
site.
The panel presented its findings in a
public meeting to more than 50 local leaders. Recommendations supported
on-going efforts to revitalize the downtown area, but included some
strategic proposals, such as: reduce the amount of retail space by
another 100,000 square feet and cluster tenants with complementary uses; increase the housing
units in DownTown by some 325 units which would yield 700
new residents nearby the shopping and entertainment district; and change the village’s governance structure
from one in which elections are held annually with board
members serving three year terms to a system that allows for a four
year terms in office. This was recommended to improve the continuity of the
board. Additional recommendations
included a proposed organizational structure for the redevelopment effort,
including hiring a professional marketing and leasing firm to increase the
exposure of DownTown Park Forest both to tenants and consumers.
These recommendations reflected the
relevant expertise and experience of the ULI
participants and their knowledge of the Chicago region’s marketplace, as well as
national trends. Community stakeholders responded favorably to the report,
which reinforces the importance of the downtown center. They said that the panel's
recommendations were “just what the village needed to know” to build on the vision of
a revitalized downtown. And, just days after the panel concluded their work, the
village had already moved forward on one recommendation: changing the election
cycle of its board. As John
Ostenburg, village president, said, “we’re going to be constantly looking for
options that will help make Park Forest successful.”
The Park Forest panel is one of three panels being
conducted by the Campaign for Sensible Growth and ULI Chicago this year. On
Aug. 20 and 21, the partners will continued
with a south suburban focus by launching a year long effort to assist the
Village of Riverdale with its efforts to provide quality housing opportunities
for its residents. The
Riverdale panel was chaired by Charles Hill, former president of the Federal Home Loan
Bank of Chicago. Earlier
in 2003, a panel was convened to help Hanover Park create a new Village Center
on 22 vacant acres across from its Metra train station. The Campaign for Sensible
Growth and
ULI Chicago have also conducted panels for Highland Park, Highwood, Humboldt
Park and Richmond as part of a regional strategy to put sensible growth
strategies into local actions.
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