At 90 years old, Rosemary Wegner moves around better than most people her age, but the 62-year Norridge resident acknowledges that the full-block distance from the parking lot to the Norridge Park District building was too far.
When the park district reopened the long-shuttered former Eisenhower Public Library building at 4652 N. Olcott Ave. as a $2.5 million dual-purpose senior center and dance facility on May 21, Wegner was one of nearly 100 seniors and other residents who showed up to tour the 13,500-square-foot building and enjoy a slice of cake in the spacious senior center.
Aside from two 400-square-foot dance studios that will be used to host classes for more than 200 kids who take ballet, jazz, tap and modern dance at the park district, a highlight of the new building is the parking lot — which is steps away from the main entrance.
For many seniors in Norridge and Harwood Heights, the park district is a place where they can go to enjoy social activities, such as the bi-weekly poker club, pinochle tournaments on Wednesdays and Fridays, and also play board games with friends.
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The new building, named Recreation Center East, solves a long-running problem for the main park district building on Overhill Avenue where seniors struggled to make the trek from the parking lot to the main entrance. The location of the bathrooms in the basement of the main building also posed a challenge for seniors who had to take the elevator downstairs.
“If someone had to use the restroom, they had to go a long way, so we’d put our pinochle games on hold for quite a while to wait until they got back,” Wegner said. “We’ve been so anxious for the new building to open because now we have our own space.”
Norridge couple John and Amalia Pappademetriou lingered at a table in the senior activity room after the crowds started to thin out. The couple, who sometimes will travel to other suburbs to find something to do on the weekends, said the activities offered at the senior center didn’t appeal to them.
“I would be more interested in coming here if they had more than card games — like if they had bingo or live music,” Amalia Pappademetriou said. “It is a beautiful place though. I think it turned out really nice.”
A warm and sunny spring afternoon was the setting for a ribbon-cutting event outside of the building’s main entrance on Saturday afternoon, attended by Norridge Village President James Chmura, several Norridge trustees and Norwood Park Fire Chief Kevin Stenson, who joined park district Director Mark DeSalvo to welcome the public and celebrate the grand opening.
“Everyone should be proud of what the park district did to reuse this building without putting a financial burden on the residents,” Chmura said.
DeSalvo, who said the park district paid for the facility with savings set aside in a reserve fund, said the building’s opening has been a long time coming. The renovation of the half century-old building will accomplish multiple goals for the park district, which repurposed the courtyard area behind the brick structure into a spacious maintenance shed alongside a car wash for keeping the park district’s fleet of maintenance vehicles clean.
“There were bumps in the road, but at the end we have a brand-new building for the public to enjoy,” DeSalvo said.
The building’s location in Harwood Heights put it at the focus of a legal battle that erupted between two years ago when the Harwood Heights village board attempted to block the Eisenhower Public Library from selling the building to the park district. It was the second time during the past four years that Harwood Heights officials tried to stop the building from begin used for a purpose that doesn’t produce sales tax dollars for the municipality.
After an eight-year vacancy and a legal battle with Harwood Heights after it tried to block the sale of the former Eisenhower Public Library building on Olcott Avenue, the decades-old brick building will be reborn as an activity center for the Norridge Park District.
In 2012, the village denied applications from Mercy Islamic Center to open a mosque on the property.
The building has been off the tax rolls since 1974 when the library opened, so Harwood Heights would have seen a new stream of revenue from sales and property tax if the building were to reopen as a business instead of a governmental body.
After the lawsuit was resolved out of court early last year, DeSalvo said the Norridge Park District paid $550,000 to buy the building from Eisenhower Public Library — which has been housed in a new facility on West Wilson and Oketo avenues since 2008.
Officials in Harwood Heights, which shares use of the park district with Norridge, have not commented about the opening of the new building. Attempts to reach Harwood Heights Mayor Arlene Jezierny regarding the project have been unsuccessful.
Natalie Hayes is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.