Residents and Homer Glen officials looked into the future of the 159th Street corridor and shared such visions as a hotel, shopping mall, sports complex and senior housing.
“We’re going to turn you loose and have you draw out your vision for the corridor,” Devin Lavigne, co-founder of Houseal Lavigne Associates, the planning firm tasked with drafting a plan for the area, told about 25 people at a workshop last week.
Participants were broken into several groups at tables to view a map and brainstorm. Other ideas for the corridor included bike paths, a movie theater and restaurants, such as Chipotle and Panera.
There also was a desire to have a unique Homer Glen character to the corridor and to resolve flooding issues. The raised barrier medians, which the Illinois Department of Transportation plans to put in as part of its 159th Street widening project, drew concerns.
Sandbox Preschool owner Sue Moustakas said she attended the workshop because she is concerned the medians will deter customers from her preschool and pose a safety issue for moms “with little children in the car” who will need to make a U-turn to go east.
“Will the traffic zooming along slow down and let these people through?” Moustakas asked.
Dorothy McCarthy, who lives near 159th Street and Bell Road, said she wants to “find out what options might fit” for five acres she wants to sell and develop.
Cathy Boo, whose great-grandfather settled the Boo farm property in 1867 and whose children are the fifth generation at the location at 159th Street and Gougar Road in unincorporated Homer Township, said the lights and the noise that have emerged since the I-355 expansion, have “completely changed the area” and are prompting her and her husband David to think about moving.
“We realized that if we want to maintain that rural flavor of living, it will have to be elsewhere,” David Boo said.
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The 159th Street plans are “good” and her property, which is desirable, would be a great location for a hotel and conference center, Cathy Boo said.
Lavigne said his firm will create a draft plan, which probably will be presented to the Village Board in the fall. The firm is working on a $112,800 contract to study the corridor and make land use recommendations. The study started in December.