Oak Park and River Forest have been in a “stage of development” for a little over a decade now, starting with the River Forest Town Center in August of 1994. Almost every proposed devlopment has been controversial, arousing often intense opposition. We thought it would be interesting on occasion to revisit some of these developments and try to assess whether they worked or not-starting with the Oak Park and River Forest High School parking garage.
Three years after it opened in September of 2003, the garage, located on Lake Street between East and Scoville, scarcely elicits a nod or a notice, which in itself may be testament to its success. Many of those who opposed it mentioned the aesthetics of erecting a large hulking garage on Lake that would represent most visitors’ first impression of the high school. Some thought it would obscure the fieldhouse and would be-that most ghastly of all construction criticisms-“out of proportion” or “out of character” with its surroundings.
A visual inspection of the two-level, partially submerged garage undercuts that criticism. It does not obstruct vision, and large open rectangular “windows” diffuse the “massing” of the structure. It also allows vision into-and out of-the lower level of the garage, which subverts some of the security fears users always express about parking garages-as well as fears of students hiding in there doing God knows what. Planters, overgrown with greenery, also soften the facade for those who have an aversion to bunker-style cement facing. Brown brick “ties” the garage to the adjacent football stadium, further lessening the visual dissonance.
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“It’s fine,” says Bob Trezevant, one of the more passionate opponents of the proposal, “for a garage.” But Trezevant, who recently moved from the Linden Street house he inhabited, across from the athletic fields, for decades, asks the same questions he asked then. Was it necessary and was it a good use of public funds?
Three years after the garage opened, he still answers both questions with an emphatic “no.”
Trezevant said there was plenty of parking in the neighborhood, which is news to high school officials, who say they’ve gotten pressure from residents for years about parking problems. Trezevant, however, says he proved it by conducting walking surveys of the available parking (with David Boulanger, another high school neighbor, who also happens to be the Oak Park Township supervisor) and actually counting the spaces.
He believes the real pressure for a garage came from the Huskie Boosters, who wanted more parking to be able to host IHSA regionals and sectionals. He also thinks the village used the garage as a way to win the high school’s support for extending the downtown TIF district (which freezes property values in certain areas and deprives school districts, among other government bodies, of the extra tax dollars).
In other words, he dislikes the way it was done more than the finished product.
“Public money was used to build a garage to provide teachers with free parking, which they already had. That’s too much money not connected to the education of students. We’re spending $4-7 million for convenience. Is that worth it?”
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It is if you ask OPRF officials, who see “a marked improvement,” according to Kay Foran, communications director. She sees improved relations with neighbors, improved safety, and improved morale among staff and faculty.
“That early morning parking grab was just hideous,” she recalls. “It’s a terrific asset.”
It has also helped with extracurricular events-performing arts productions, parent-teacher conferences, sports tournaments. And it has allowed the village to limit the east side of Scoville to resident-only parking.
Foran says Supt. Susan Bridge recently reminisced that in her first meeting with the public, she found the room filled to capacity with angry people, asking what she was going to do about parking.
“We have certainly moved far from those days,” said Foran. “It’s never going to be enough when you have almost 500 employees and 3,200 students, but it’s still a great improvement.”
David Boulanger says feelings among neighbors about the garage were always mixed. “Some were negative and others thought it was the right thing to do,” he recalls.
Boulanger got involved in order to facilitate communication and praises Bridge for her willingness to meet with citizen groups. For some, the objection was “a visual thing. They didn’t want to lose the green space.”
He said the parking survey they conducted was partly to try to move student parking away from the immediate school perimeter. They identified unused parking on South Boulevard and on east-west streets, including Chicago Avenue, and communicated that to the village. Today, students are purchasing permits for spaces away from the front of neighbors’ houses, which is a big plus for homeowners.
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“The neighbors were always very pro-student,” Boulanger says, “but easy access to their cars was not good.” It led to litter, loud music, and behavior the neighbors found offensive. The garage, plus street parking restrictions, has resulted in moving students’ cars away from the immediate school environs.
The best reason for having the garage, Boulanger says, is accommodating events outside of school hours.
“More people are coming to the community. It’s used heavily for Farmers’ Market. It takes a good number of cars off the streets. That’s very nice for homeowners. It’s an excellent resource.”
The fears people had about aesthetics were addressed, he says, largely as a result of the neighbors’ opposition. The final product is “attractive and functional.” The neighbors for the most part, he adds, “are happy with it.”
The timing was right, too, he notes. “It’s a good thing they built it when they did. I don’t know if they would have the money now.”
Borrowed to build
Actually, the village didn’t have the money then, either, observes Galen Gockel, a former village trustee (who recently rejoined the board as a replacement until April’s election). He calls the garage “a $4 million-plus gift from the village board to the high school board,” because of “great pressure from the OPRF high school administration and faculty. The total cost, of course, will be greater as the village repays its borrowing, with interest, over 20 years.”
He acknowledges “it is a great convenience to the faculty to park next to their place of work. And some people do park there during the 22 days per year when the Farmers’ Market is open. Yet a surface parking lot would have cost far less and provided the needed relief.”
Gockel still thinks, “It was not a well thought out expenditure of our money.”
His fellow trustee on that board in 2002, Gus Kostopulos, was not only in favor of the garage, “It was my idea.” Kostopulos, an architect, has for years championed smaller “satellite” parking garages, which have minimal impact and are built partially underground.
“You have to be sensitive where you put them,” he observed, “but they do help, and they’re reasonable in price.”
The village saved $65-85,000, Kostopulos estimates, by using pre-cast concrete. “It was built very fast.”
He does have a few quibbles. “I would have used warmer materials, more brick,” he says, “but this is an architect talking. Architects always try to outdo the next guy.”
As for its necessity, he thinks parking was a “horrendous” problem in the neighborhood, “so we gritted our teeth and did it to help the community.”
And it is a community garage, he takes pains to note. “I was a little shocked to see the high school’s name on it. The village did it with citizens’ money.”
But it’s money he considers “well spent.”
A friendlier campus
Jack Lanenga agrees. In fact, Lanenga, OPRF’s assistant superintendent of Building & Grounds, calls the garage, “one of my favorite topics.” Just the other day he said to a colleague, ‘What did we do before?'”
Well, Lanenga remembers the “before.”
“When I first interviewed here in 1999,” he recalls, “I had to park four blocks away-and I was worried about whether I’d be done in two hours.”
The garage, he says, has allowed OPRF to “dedicate the front of the school to one-hour parking,” which means parents and other visitors who need to stop by quickly and run in have a place to park. “It’s a wonderful add-on,” Lanenga says.
The school still pays approximately $45,000 a year to Pilgrim Congregational Church next door to use their parking lot. The village insisted that be part of the garage agreement. The Pilgrim spaces are bigger and some faculty prefer parking there, says Lanenga. Others opt for the north side of Erie Street because their classes are located on the north end of the OPRF campus.
He admits the garage typically doesn’t fill up. There are 300 spaces in the garage and the school has another 94 at Pilgrim. On a regular school day, he says, you’ll find 20-30 spots open. But Lanenga sees that as a plus.
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“The biggest improvement is in the friendliness of the campus. Teachers always have a place a to park.” When the garage first opened in September of 2003, Lanenga auctioned his parking spot and raised $650 for the Community Chest. It was sold even before the Cubs tickets. The next year he only got $550 for it. “Now it’s of no value,” he says. “I offered it to the Huskie Boosters who auction it off for kids to park in.”
Some students buy village permits for outlying spaces. Lanenga said they have 128 available, which sell out by the second day of availability ($60 each or about 33 cents a day).
When special events are scheduled, the garage is packed. During the two recent parent-teacher conference nights, for instance, both the garage and Pilgrim were full, Lanenga said. And the structure allows them to hold regional and sectional tournaments, which was impractical in the past. That means the kids get to experience home field advantage for a change, Lanenga notes, and it also generates some revenue for the school.
“It’s good for morale and it’s good for school spirit,” he says. “It’s nice to publicize our school. I’d put our facilities up against anybody’s.”
But was the garage necessary?
“Absolutely. It’s taken the pressure off the neighbors and the teachers and improved the relationship with both. It couldn’t have been much fun in the past fighting for parking spots.” The garage gives teachers more incentive to work longer hours, he adds, and they feel safe. The only complaint he hears is that the spaces are pretty narrow, “a typical garage issue,” Lanenga observes.
At the annual holiday craft fair in early November, they had approximately 400 cars in the garage and at Pilgrim. And it comes in handy in other ways. A thunderstorm interrupted the Homecoming sophomore football game, and most people crowded into the garage for shelter. Despite fears in the past of tension between Proviso West and OPRF fans, there were no incidents and no problems.
Contrary to fears that the garage would be unsightly, Lanenga says the opposite is true-it serves as an attractive “front door” for the campus, which is why they put the high school’s name on the large brick slab at the west end of the garage. The village’s logo is on the Scoville side where the vehicles enter and exit.
They don’t get much overnight parking use by residents, but five OPRF employees who work the night shift park there, as well as the occasional teacher. One night, Lanenga had to come in at 2 a.m. because of a phone outage and found an insomniac working out in the fieldhouse.
The only downside is shooing out students who attempt to park there, and the west wall gets used to kick soccer balls and tennis balls against, so it needs regular cleaning.
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Cooperation with the village has been good, Lanenga says. When the village’s mini-street sweepers were destroyed in the Public Works fire, the high school purchased its own and they’ve been using it to keep the facility tidy.
David Powers, village communications director, says the garage has been a success from their standpoint.
“It was never viewed as a revenue generator,” Powers said. “It was viewed as a service-to get teacher and student cars off the surrounding streets.” He estimates it generates less than $10,000 per year in parking fees (after 4 p.m. and on weekends). Twenty overnight permits are offered, but they’ve only sold three, the problem being you have to be out of there by 7 a.m.
“It depends on your measure of success,” Powers says. “Our purpose was to ease congestion in the neighborhood, and that has been accomplished.”