The Tinley Park-Park District could gain ownership before the end of this month of 280 acres of state-owned land that it plans to redevelop for recreational uses, according to a Park District official.
At the same time, the district expects to get $15 million in state grant money to address environmental issues and move forward with initial steps such as removing underground storage tanks and clearing lead-based paint and asbestos from buildings before they are demolished, according to Lisa O’Donovan, a Park Board member.
The district has also hired a former union official to be project manager to help supervise contractors that will work on environmental remediation.
The state, under legislation signed into law in August by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, will sell the property to the district for $1.
Northwest of Harlem Avenue and 183rd Street, the property encompasses the shuttered Tinley Park Mental Health hospital and adjacent Howe Developmental Center. The Park District initially plans to redevelop 90 acres of the Howe center.
The Park District envisions an initial phase that includes five baseball fields, six multipurpose athletic fields, a domed soccer field, stadium with running track, accessible playground and a pond. It would be on part of the Howe property at the west end of the site, directly east of the Park District’s Freedom Park and Veterans Parkway.
O’Donovan said the transfer could be completed this month, and said the Park District has completed applications needed to secure the state grant money. She chairs a district committee, called Remediate 280, that includes village residents and will be involved in the cleanup and eventual redevelopment of the property.
The district is working with the firm Tetra Tech to update a study it did for Tinley Park in 2014, which at the time estimated the cost to clean up any contamination and demolish structures on the property at $12.4 million. The village wanted to acquire the site for redevelopment.
The update hasn’t shown any surprises, O’Donovan said.
“We were expecting it to show more of a dire state of need and be even worse than it was,” she said of the firm’s initial findings. “We are quite pleased where we are at right now.”
The Park District is getting bids on removing underground storage tanks, then would seek costs for removing lead and asbestos from buildings, which would be done before they’re torn down, O’Donovan said.
Along with private security on the property, the Park District may secure the site with fencing and possibly security cameras, she said.
The Park District has already hired Renee Cipriano, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency director from 2001-05, to guide the district through the remediation process.
The district will enter the IEPA’s voluntary remediation program, where the agency would oversee cleanup work. The goal is to get a letter from the IEPA saying that cleanup efforts have been sufficient, and no further remediation is needed.
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O’Donovan said there are just more than 60 buildings, and that the Park District plans to raze all of them and remove contaminants.
“We want to make sure it is cleaned up to a point where it is safe for redevelopment,” she said. “We are working closely with IEPA to make sure we meet their guidelines.”
The district would not need a clean bill of health for the entire site in order to move ahead with redevelopment, and could get partial approval from the state to proceed on a portion of the site, O’Donovan said.
The Park District also announced recently that village resident Michael Maloney, former president of Pipefitters Local 597, has been brought on as an independent contractor to be project manager for the property remediation.
Maloney worked for decades as a construction superintendent, managing large workforces on a variety of multimillion-dollar projects involving highly radioactive components in nuclear power stations across northern Illinois, according to the Park District.