Mokena recently tested the waters for redeveloping its downtown, but only got a nibble.
Village officials aren’t too concerned about the lack of interest, however, and are willing to take their time to figure out what they really want their downtown to be.
It has been 15 months since the village purchased a strategic 1.3 acre parcel at 19747 Wolf Road, on the northeast corner of Wolf Road and McGovney Street, along side the Metra commuter parking lot. Its goal was to tear down the 22,000-square foot vacant and blighted building there — which it did — and gain control over the future development of that site.
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To that end, it recently sought proposals and despite casting a wide net into the development community, it received only one, from Olivieri Architects of Frankfort, which it rejected.
While other suburban downtown areas with train stations have been developing in Orland Park, Tinley Park and New Lenox, Mokena is “not in a hurry,” said Mayor Frank Fleischer.
“We will wait until we get what we want,” he added.
In the meantime, he is encouraged by some activity on Front Street – a main street in its downtown district,
Curtain Call Community Theatre will soon be opening a small theater in the former pharmacy at 11112 Front Street, and a few doors away, Annie’s Cucina, a restaurant and gourmet food shop, is expanding to offer a small party room on the second floor.
Both buildings are owned by village Trustee Joe Siwinski, who believes the theater will be a catalyst for the downtown’s transformation.
“Curtain Call will make a big difference,” he said. Both Siwinski and the mayor believe it will bring more people downtown and hope it will attract new restaurants to serve the theater crowd.
“I believe in the downtown,” said Siwinski, a local realtor, explaining why he personally invested in buildings on Front Street.
Over the years, the village also has invested in its downtown.
*In 2002, it spent $2.7 million on new water and sewer lines, street lighting and landscaping, and reconfigured its parking.
*In 2005, it gave a sales tax rebate to Berkots Super Foods, when it expanded its store on Wolf Road.
*In 2008, the village approved a downtown development plan, which calls for transit-oriented development with a mixture of commercial and residential units.
* A year later, it created a 20-year, 53-acre tax increment financing (TIF) district centered around the Front Street Metra station — all designed to awaken its sleepy downtown district, but little has been done in the TIF. It currently has $128,000 in funds.
The core of Mokena’s downtown stretches for several blocks in all directions from the intersection of Wolf Road and Front Street. It is a mix of residential, medical, financial, and insurance offices, a couple of gift shops, a popular video store, an auto shop, and a few restaurants, such as Annies, Eggcetera, and Aurelios Pizza.
There’s a mixed use development, Mokena Mills, on the site of the former wallpaper factory on Wolf Road, just south of the Metra tracks, a four-story building, with commercial units on the first floor and 24 condos above it. The village would like to see similar development in its downtown, to bring in more people and more retail.
Redeveloping the downtown is not without its challenges.
A key segment of Front Street, from Wolf Road to Mokena Street, has a Metra commuter lot on one side.
The village is committed to providing parking for Metra commuters, but ideally, Fleischer said he would like to “swap” the parking on the north side of the tracks, abutting Front Street and place it on the village-owned parcel on the south side of the tracks, along McGovney Street—without losing parking spaces.
Both he and Siwinski said for Front Street to be viable, it must be developed commercially on both sides.
“People like to walk up one side of the street and down the other,” said Fleischer. “A majority of us would like to move the parking.”
Talking to Metra officials will likely be one of the village’s next steps in its redevelopment efforts.
Siwinski also believes that the Wolf Road traffic is the downtown’s biggest asset, and the village needs to explore more ways of unifying Wolf and Front. He also would like to work with the Mokena Community Park District as it develops the historic Yunker Farm, which abuts the downtown area from Division Street east to Schoolhouse Road.
Another challenge is making sure development doesn’t impact existing single family homes.
In its downtown plan and in its criteria for the proposals, it recently sought to develop its 1.3 acres, Mokena officials outlined the need for multi-story, mixed use development in this area – condo units above commercial units, much like the Mokena Mills building across the street from the village’s parcel.
If the village is going to deviate from that plan and bring in more apartments, Siwinski said there should be a public hearing to get residents’ input.
John Olivieri said his firm completed a market study and submitted three options for mixed use developments, two on the village-owned site, and one on the site of the Metra lot, assuming that the parking would be moved. All called for commercial units with apartments, instead of condos, because that is today’s market demand, he said.
It is likely that the village’s requirement for condos kept other developers from submitting proposals, said assistant village administration Kirk Zoellner, adding that condos may not be “financially feasible.”
Siwinski said he was surprised they got one proposal at all, given all the village expected of potential developers — burying utilities, fully improving McGovney Street, decorative street lighting, pedestrian access and landscaping — totaling $1.1 million in public improvements.
With all of that, it would be hard to get a proposal where the developer could make money, Siwinski said
All of Olivieri’s proposals were rejected because they did not include those improvements, and they featured apartments, instead of condos as required, village officials said.
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According to Olivieri, the village’s requirements were “unrealistic,” and the costly public improvements were “unfair.”
This is not the first time his firm tried to develop that parcel. Before the village purchased it, Olivieri said he had a purchaser/developer who presented a plan that was “exactly what was called for” in village plans, but the village wasn’t interested.
Mokena bought the property from Rita Fink in December, 2014, for $750,000, $75,000 less than what Olivieri’s buyer offered.
Fink said she had many offers, with many options to build on what was known as the Therafin property, where her late husband manufactured wheelchair parts and accessories to aid the handicapped.
“Every time they went to the village board, they were denied. Potential tenants walked away. I couldn’t even sell it,” she said. “The reality is that the village wanted it all along, for as little as possible.”
“It’s a prime piece of property. Maybe they will do something grand with it. I hope so,” Fink said.
Currently, a portion of the site is used for commuter parking, and the rest is a vacant gravel lot.
Olivieri, a Mokena resident, said he is “disheartened that my village wants to sit and wait while all other towns with train stations have viable downtowns.”
“They have missed an opportunity to do something with their downtown,” he said. “Mokena’s downtown has no identity.”
Olivieri is puzzled by the board’s resistance to apartments, which could be converted to condos when the market changes, he said.
“They allow video gaming and medical marijuana in the village, but not high end apartments,” he said.
In its online information to potential developers, the village noted that developers “would have to convince the village board that owner-occupied units are not feasible.” It is also not willing to use any public money to develop the downtown.
The market area — which extends beyond Mokena — already has plenty of high end apartments and can only support so many, Siwinski said, citing Orland Park’s Ninety 7 Fifty on the Park project at its 143rd Street train station and an approved plan for about 200 apartments in the Lincoln Station complex near the New Lenox train station on U.S. 30. Both projects also include commercial entities. Tinley Park also is weighing a similar proposal near its Oak Park Avenue station.
“We are not Orland Park, and we are not Tinley Park,” Siwinski said.
Even if a developer built the required condos, the village cannot prevent the owner from renting the units. Siwinski said he believes half of the 24 condo units in Mokena Mills are rented.
“I don’t want to set up a project for failure,” he said, preferring that a large scale project be phased in, as it is occupied.
Fleischer said he is not opposed to a few high-end apartments, but the board is divided on the issue.
“We really have to make up our minds about what we want there,” he said.