Oak Park Meeting Roundup: Future Cloudy for Controversial Hotel

If you missed Monday’s Oak Park Village Board meeting, Patch has some of the highlights:

Future of hotel project to emerge later this year: The developer of a hotel-condominium project at Lake Street and Forest Avenue told trustees he would know this fall whether the project will go forward.

Michael Glazier, managing principal of Sertus Capital Partners, said there is interest in the project and recent discussions with prospective investors have been encouraging, but no one has come forward with the funding, particularly for the hotel portion. 

Glazier was updating the board about the status of the project shortly before trustees unanimously granted him a second extension – until December 15, 2011 - to obtain a building permit for the $85 million project. Until construction begins on the site, the village can use the vacant space at Lake and Forest to pile snow, which it did this winter, and other activities. 

To help Glazier find prospective financial partners, trustees suggested the . should step up and help him find local investors.

The controversial project — near the , the and at the gateway of the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District  — would include a 140-room hotel, 85 condominiums and 28,000 square feet of retail space. Those elements would be wrapped around a new 510-space parking garage; a majority of that would be for public use. Discussion about the project began in the spring of 2007.  Trustees approved the effort last March 15.

Streetscape effort to return to board March 28:  The costs to make streetscape improvements on South Marion Street, North and South Oak Park Avenues will be better known later this month.

Trustees instructed village officials to return March 28 with the guaranteed maximum price to cover the installation of ornamental lighting, brick streets, granite sidewalks and iron benches, similar to what were installed along North Marion Street three years ago.

As part of the nearly two-hour discussion over the details, trustees also suggested they might look at doing the project in phases depending on the costs. Additionally, officials pledged to look at how to aid businesses that could be disrupted by the installation of new sewers on South Oak Park Avenue.

Trustees and backers of the project said the facelift would spur re-investments and increase sales tax revenues, as it had along North Marion Street.

But Anan Abu-Taleb, the owner of , thought that the effort could be done more creatively with a lot less money.  Trustee Jon Hale called the project an extravagance especially in this tough economy; Trustee Colette Lueck said she wanted to see information about return on investments before she was inclined to vote for it.

The estimated cost of this year’s work could run as high as $5 million; funds from the Greater Downtown TIF District would cover the cost, village engineer Jim Budrick said.

New building fee structure approved: Residents and contractors soon can apply for permits online for many projects following unanimous approval of a new building permit fee schedule.

Permits for roofing work, siding and stucco will be available at the end of March; permits for gutters, downspouts, soffits and fascia, doors and windows will be available in late April. The new schedule will pertain to the replacements of doors and windows. Permits for all of the other work will be for replacements, new installation or repairs.

Live from Oak Park, it’s Monday night (sometimes Tuesday night): For insomniacs and those who like to keep their eyes on government, board meetings are now streamed online 24-7 on the website. Four meetings are online; there still may be bugs in the process and the files may take time to download, depending on the length of the meeting, spokesman David Powers said.