Business owners in the Southtown business district are lamenting the recent loss of an unpaved lot used for customer parking.
A chain-link fence went up in mid-April around the 12,000-square-foot lot at the southwest corner of South Oak Park Avenue and Van Buren Street in preparation for sale, said Walter Healy, president and CEO of Community Bank of Oak Park River Forest.
Just prior to the closure of the lot, Healy said Community Bank gave businesses within the district a heads up the lot could no longer be used for parking, as it has been for more than three years. Community Bank has had possession of the lot for five years, Healy said; before that, a gas station occupied the space.
“We’re not in the parking business; we’re in the banking business,” Healy said. “They’ll just have to go back to the way it was before.”
Healy, who said the bank has discussed the lot’s sale with developers, believes a mixed-use development could be the right fit for the area.
Enes Bektasevic, co-owner of Avenue Ale House, said a man who identified himself as being affiliated with the bank stopped by the restaurant and bar to let him know about the fencing the day or two before it went up.
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Bektasevic said he was told the bank was preparing the lot for sale, which he said he understands, but he wondered why the lot couldn’t continue to be used until it was sold.
“It definitely helps this little part of South Oak Park,” he said. “It would be nice if Oak Park bought it and made it a parking lot.”
Chris Withey, one of the owners of The Kinderhook Tap, also said Healy stopped by his business to give him notice of the fence. Withey — who said he often noticed about 60 cars in the lot on Friday or Saturday nights — went back and forth on the issue, mentioning that he could see the reasoning behind closing off the lot, but he said it’s unfortunate for the district.
“In the meantime, it would have been nice if they had just left it open,” he said.
Since the lot has been fenced off, Withey said he’s noticed parents whose children go to Blocks 24-Hour Childcare Center having to get their children out of their cars on busy Oak Park Avenue.
“It made a little bit of a difference for everybody on the block, to be honest,” he said of the parking spaces. “Parking’s at a premium in Oak Park.”
Sean Scott, a manager at furniture consignment shop Divine Consign, said the loss of the parking lot is bad for all of the businesses in that district, not just Divine Consign, which is directly south of the lot. He and Divine Consign owner Kellie Scott said they were not notified of the fence being put up.
Kellie Scott added that the chain-link fencing gives the district an unappealing look, and residents in the area are unhappy because the lot’s closure has led to customers parking on other residential streets.
“Now, people — if they don’t have anywhere to park, they keep going,” Kellie Scott said.
Although it was the bank’s decision to shut it down, Tammie Grossman, Oak Park’s director of development customer services, said the village never viewed the space as a parking lot.
“We have very strict standards for what a parking lot is supposed to look like, and it didn’t meet any of those standards,” Grossman said. “We don’t allow gravel parking areas in the village.”
Grossman said the village had been receiving complaints from people who parked in the lot and whose cars had been damaged, and those complaints were passed on to the bank.
The bank’s initial intention in purchasing that lot several years ago was putting a branch on that corner, Healy said. But when the former bank space at 810 S. Oak Park Ave. became available, it provided the right home for another branch, he said.
Last operating as a Charter One bank branch, the space has been vacant since 2014. Community Bank began leasing the building earlier this year, and will pursue village approval for drive-thru lane operation and permits to renovate the space, according to a news release. The bank also awaits approval from federal and state banking regulators.
Healy said the bank hopes to open the Southtown branch in November, to coincide with Community Bank’s 20th anniversary.
“We’re excited about being down there. We’ve been talking about it for a long time,” Healy said.
Grossman said those looking for parking are encouraged to use the metered spots along that corridor of South Oak Park Avenue, or the two parking lots behind Fifth Third Bank, at the corner of South Oak Park Avenue and Harrison Street.
Caitlin Mullen is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.