Tinley Park’s Plan Commission is scheduled to vote March 12 on requests related to remodeling and upgrading the long-vacant Tinley Park Public Library building at 171st Street and 71st Avenue.
Attorney John Maher is seeking support for the site plan, as well as a special use permit to allow a one-bedroom apartment at the rear of the main floor and a front-yard setback variation for an extended architectural wall for the proposed Maher Funeral Homer operated by his brother, Phil.
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The two-level 28,000-square foot facility was constructed in 1973 and served as Tinley Park’s third library until 2004.
The Mahers’ immediate plans call for installing new landscaping, completely remodeling the 14,000-square-foot main floor, updating the exterior and limiting the reach of outside lighting.
Assuming the village board approves their proposal and there are no major construction problems, the family operation could open in six months.
Commissioners Bob McClellan and Maureen McLeod clearly were pleased with the plans. “This is a perfect use for this building, that’s been vacant for too many years,” McClellan said. “We are glad to see it finally put to good use,” McLeod added.
Dave TeBrake, executive vice president of St. Cloud, Minn.-based Miller Architects & Builders, told plan commissioners at their Feb. 19 meeting three glass windows would be “cut into” the building’s exterior on 71st Avenue to “break up that wall of brick.”
He said the building’s north and front would be “all-glass,” with double-panes replacing the current single-panes. Special wrappings would give the exterior columns on 171st Street and 71st Avenue a new look. The current sign would be replaced by a new stone monument-style sign.
Perhaps the most obvious change would be a 3’6″ wide, 18’6″ high stone wall angling from the facility’s front door that TeBrake said “would open the entrance up more.” The wall reportedly wouldn’t extend far enough to affect drainage, nearby traffic, views from neighboring properties or endanger the public.
Senior Planner Paula Wallrich, in her public debut as a Tinley Park staff member, praised the “unique architectural element.”
Noting the former library property is “kind of unusual” in that it has three frontages, she said the wall would act as “sort of a wayfinding device to highlight where the entrance to the funeral home is.”
Wallrich, most recently Homewood’s Community Development Director, credited the original site plan with saving 27 existing trees and reducing the amount of light extending beyond the funeral home property.
She said the Mahers also have agreed to include dense natural screening between parking lot aisles “to make sure, as cars are driving down the aisles, they aren’t shining (headlights) into the neighbors” and to install a new fence on the funeral home’s east side to screen the transfer of bodies arriving at the facility.
TeBrake said the main floor inside the building would consist of an apartment at the rear, offices, lounges, preparation rooms and a chapel with a stone wall.
Commissioner Jeff Ficaro, who with McLeod, will return with recommendations at the advisory group’s next meeting, welcomed the proposal. But Ficaro also questioned the condition of the lower level, recalling he’d discovered it “had considerable mold” when he “walked the site 5-6 years ago.”
TeBrake responded the lender “did its due diligence,” suggesting the previous owner, Dick Post, had addressed the issue.