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Politics & Government

Skokie Voice Offers New Ideas for Old Police Station

Village trustees get results of online survey showing residents' desires for vacant property.

The community group Skokie Voice is looking for issues where it can play a part in town politics and government. So it has rallied around  the fate of the old police station and what the village should do with the property.

At Monday’s village trustees meeting, Skokie Voice revealed to trustees the results of its online survey about what should be done with the property at 8350 Laramie Ave., which was abandoned after 54 years when police operations moved to a new headquarters in October.

Of the 118 people who responded during the two-week survey, 47.3 percent said they would like to see the property converted to a nonprofit facility.  The poll found that 36 percent would like the village to sell the site and 16.7 percent favored re-zoning the land for commercial use.

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Giving voice to ideas

Skokie Voice is not planning to submit a formal recommendation to the trustees, rather the group wants to make sure its backers are heard.

“We don’t have any definite ideas,” said Sam Lewis, a board member with the community organization. “We just want the trustees to look over the ideas.  We will go with your best judgment."

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Additional findings show that almost 37 percent of the respondents offered specific ideas for the old police station. Of that group, the biggest number favored converting the facility into a place offering opportunities to disadvantaged children.

“When you have kids at risk, you need to do things for them,” said Bonnie Fell, a Skokie Voice member.  “We have no simple thing for the kids at risk.  It may not be at the police station, but we should listen to what people are requesting.”

While Skokie Voice is trying to gather citizen input, the ultimate fate of the property remains in the hands of village officials and no decisions have been made as there seems to be no urgency.

Part of that may lie with the challenges of the triangular property that has a 30,000-square-foot building with a basement at the intersections of Main Street and Lincoln and Laramie avenues.

“It is reasonably unique.  It is a difficult building to reuse,” said Mayor George Van Dusen. “There will be parking challenges to meet.”

Van Dusen said the property was appraised last year at more than $2 million, but the village was uncertain whether a buyer would pay that amount given the economic and housing market downturns.

Van Dusen may hear firsthand from residents about the property as well as other concerns residents have when he meets Skokie Voice during a Feb. 23 open forum at the Oakton Community Center.

Revised Walgreens plan

Also at the Monday’s meeting, a representative speaking on behalf of the Walgreen Co. announced the drugstore giant had made a series of changes to its proposal for a new store at the corner of Dempster Street and Crawford Avenue.

At the previous board meeting, for the Walgreens, citing the traffic concerns of neighbors, especially residents on Harding Avenue. 

The new plan will eliminate a right turn that would take traffic southbound onto Harding from a proposed drive-through.  Other changes include physical barriers to move traffic back onto Dempster and Crawford and working with Illinois Department of Transportation to ease the flow of traffic onto those two main thoroughfares.

Trustees sent the revised plan back to the Plan Commission.

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