Board Approves $8.9 Million Downtown Renovation
The Skokie Village Board approved an $8.9 million renovation slated for downtown Skokie this spring. The money was raised through the downtown Tax Increment Financing District, or TIFs.
Village trustee Don Perille first moved to Skokie in 1959. He is the most tenured trustee on the village's board, serving the community for more than 20 years.
In that time, Perille, 84, has said he's seen six different efforts to revitalize downtown Skokie. And while he's stepping down this spring, he - along with five other board members - approved an $8,965,706 bid to renovate and reinvigorate the downtown area. The winning bid went to Woodstock, Ill.-based Alliance Contractors, Inc.
Construction begins this spring.
"This will be the most comprehensive improvement in downtown Skokie ever undertaken," said Village Manager Al Rigoni. "The village received four bids and the amounts were very close."
Among the improvements include pavement resurfacing, water improvements, sidewalk enhancements, traffic and signal networking, pedestrian enhancements, medians and parking improvements, among other things.
There will also be street furniture, way-finding signs and landscaping, although those items are not part of the $8.9 million bid, the board said Monday.
All of this is being paid through downtown Skokie's Tax Increment Financing District, or TIF. The way TIFs operate can be complex, but the gist of it goes like this: The village designates a specific business district, in this case the downtown area. Those businesses then pay their property taxes as usual, but schools and other services receive a lesser portion, with the remaining amount saved for improvements in the TIF district. There's also an expiration date to use the TIF funds, which for downtown Skokie is the end of 2013.
The village set up the downtown Skokie TIF in 1990 because the area "was exhibiting obvious signs of deterioration." In 2005, it was extended to 2013.
Last year, the village spent $129,928 marketing the downtown area. The year before that, $69,613. And in 2010, $102,370, according to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
To the village's credit, there's been tremendous improvement since the TIF district was created.
There's the CTA Oakton Stop, a plethora of ethnic restaurants - including the award-winning Libertad - and boutique businesses, such as Aw Yea Comics. Still, there are many vacant storefronts and the board of trustees is hoping the $8.9 million renovation will bring more business to the downtown area.
When does all of this begin?
According to Rigoni, construction will begin this spring and end in the fall.
"There will be four sequential phases," Rigoni said at Monday's board meeting. "This will reduce business and traffic interruption."
Each section will take approximately two months to complete.
Randy Miles, owner of Village Inn Pizzeria, 8050 Lincoln Ave., is also the president of the Independent Merchants of Downtown Skokie, or IMODS. Miles represents a number of downtown business owners and works with the village to improve the area.
For the last two years, Miles has been meeting with village officials for two hours every Tuesday.
"It's been grueling," Miles said with a chuckle. "We paid extreme attention to detail. IMODS worked with the village hand and glove to make this renovation as unobtrusive as possible.
"We're trying to bring downtown up to what a modern downtown should look like," Miles added. "In order to attract people from other areas as well as bring in our own citizens and make them feel comfortable. We want to make it a more pedestrian-friendly area."
Some of those changes Miles refered to include reducing the speed limit from 35 mph to 25 mph on Oakton Street. Trustee Randy Roberts also said that commercial trucks will eventually no longer travel through downtown Skokie.
"I have a lot of confidence with the village, the businesses and this project," Miles said. "Although the project will be painful, it will be less painful than any other construction project in the village's history."
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Mike Reid
7:38 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Kudos to the Village for working so closely with IMODS on this project, which will hopefully spur the development the downtown and Skokie desires and needs. And thanks to Randy Miles and the rest of IMODS for all their hard work to make our downtown a more economically vital and welcoming place to be for all residents and businesses.
Matt Smith
9:49 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Great.. nearly 9 million for downtown Skokie. Where is the stoplight at Main and Central Park, huh? That was supposed to be installed BY FEBRUARY! How about paving Main Street...or is that Randy's way of slowing down traffic, by letting Main Street crumble to gravel so cars don't have a choice but to slow down.
Conceal Carry
11:50 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
You think a light at Main and Central Park will help? We'll see how that works out when people are speeding through Yellows. The key is Enforcement. When the Speed limit was changed to 25mph, the police should have immediately showed a heavy presence. you go a month of warnings and then start with the tickets. You do that for a year. Only then will you send a message. I remember back in the 80's Morton Grove used to do this on Dempster and you always knew not to speed on Dempster.
h m
1:39 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Matt,
The money that is paying for downtown Skokie is coming from the Downtown Skokie TIF. This money can not be used to install a traffic light at Main and Central Park.
A stoplight at Main and Central Park will not slow down traffic. Enforcement of the current traffic laws is the only thing that will help.
h m
9:49 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
You are correct in stating that the speed limit has been reduced to 25 MPH. The only problem is almost nobody does 25 MPH, including the police that are suppose to be enforcing the new speed limit
Hopefully this time, the village will not extend the TIF.
D
9:58 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Other than the library I feel no need to go to downtown Skokie, everything I need is at Old Orchard. Maybe if they got some cute shops/boutiques it would appeal to more people. (Think downtown Evanston)
Conceal Carry
11:53 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Beautify Oakton street but you still have the surrounding neihborhood. Its like putting lipstick on a pig.
Frank
5:41 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Or icing on crap!!! Doesn't matter what you do to the street, unless you give people a reason to shop, live, and eat in downtown Skokie...what's the point. Can't attract Starbucks, Potbelly's, etc. need someone at village hall to market the town as a great place to do business.
Adam Davis
10:40 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
More new mixed-use, high density along Oakton, or at least within spitting distance of the new L stop might help. Creating a reason for people to live and play in the area is needed. The TIF funds have to be spent regardless or will be lost.
Its unclear if street-scaping will attract business or if there was a better possible use, but the available inventory of small storefronts isn't good for much these days. Revitalizing downtown Skokie means redeveloping extant underused properties into something more attractive for people and businesses alike. The vacant Greeting Card store (an example) isn't likely to be replaced by another in the age of e-cards and smartphones. Even pinning hopes on a few restaurants and a theatre is thin gruel.
Smart redevelopment requires capital and vision. I dont know enough about the limitations on their use, but the TIF funds could have gone a ways toward seeding a project toward that end. Eminent domaining a few unused buildings for a project have been a way to do it, or even buying them outright and selling as a package at a loss to make something happen. Unfortunately nobody had the vision to make something like that happen before they expired and had to be used for street scaping.
John
8:31 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Downtown Skokie is now a ghetto, and the $8 million will not do much good in my opinion. The only hope for Skokie is to somehow gradually buy up the surrounding multi unit buildings and then tear them down. If this is not done, there is no real hope. Years ago it was nice area with just a handful of druggies who used to hang out at the Oakton Bowl but now it's a full fledged ghetto. Thank you Chicago for knocking down all the projects and dispersing the roaches into the once nice suburbs.
Adam Davis
10:27 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
But how do you really feel?
Steve Mottel
10:44 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Frank - I agree with your points. Voting out all caucus party members that have done nothing would be a good start.
John - Tearing down the ghetto apartment buildings would be nice. You can't only blame Chicago or the CHA. Skokie and its caucus party liberals, open community liberals and others have brought the roaches here. Start by voting out all caucus party members this election!
Oliver P. McCracken
2:47 pm on Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Mister Motel,
While tearing down the "ghetto apartment buildings" might seem to be a solution for your fear of "roaches" (and kudos to you for using an R-word instead of the N-word your angry little fingers probably wanted to type!), I highly doubt the various slumlords who own them would agree.
Also, shouldn't we wait for the rent money fattening the pockets of said slumlords to trickle down to those less fortunate? Because, despite what those blasted liberals would have us believe, that's how economics works -- the Haves need the money so that they can happily and generously trickle it down like so much charitable rain upon the Have-Nots....
John
10:57 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
I encourage everyone to compare the 2010 census to the 2000 census and it should be obvious what is causing the rapid decline in Skokie.
Susan Donian
9:12 pm on Thursday, March 21, 2013
I know something that did get bigger, their paychecks and their beer bellies and their GREED.....
Citizen of the 21st Century
10:09 am on Monday, March 25, 2013
SOLUTIONS = VOTE OUT THE CAUCUS PARTY!!!!!!
David Zornig
2:02 pm on Tuesday, March 26, 2013
A couple suggestions I have for the new downtown, would be to eliminate all the parking meters after the above street improvements are made.
Downtown is the only part of Skokie that has meters other than the Dempster Swift Stop. And coincidentally the ONE area in Skokie that desperately needs to be made more inviting.
The trade off would more than be worth it, since the meters are rarely enforced anyway. What could they & the tickets possibly earn?
Any perceived lost revenue would certainly be made up in good PR and sidewalks full of people shopping local.
Continuing a meter free stretch on Oakton Westbound from 41, where motorists can pull up and park without fear of tickets would be a huge plus over Evanston's downtown & Central St.
Which are regularly enforced in a very heavy handed manner.
"Park Free In Skokie" could be it's own campaign.
Secondly, find a way to tabulate the numbers of people exiting the new Oakton L stop at both exits. So they can be used as a sales tool to help promote the downtown area to potential businesses.
Currently only the paying ridership numbers are collected. Which are useless. Everyone knew riders would get on there.
The numbers of people getting off is what needed.
Hire a couple of kids with clickers for a few months.
I don't want to read here in 12 months that the "downtown construction" is what kept people away. And that more time will be needed for the Village plan to come to fruition.
Sell the sizzle, not the steak.
Conceal Carry
2:12 pm on Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Maybe they can spend a couple grand on signage that reads " welcome to Ghosttown Skokie" and return the rest of the money to the taxpayers for property value relief...