As downtown Mt. Prospect sprouts upscale condos and coffee shops, some residents want to make sure that a patch of grass and trees isn’t a casualty of progress.
The half-acre site at Central Road and Emerson Street held three single-family homes before the village bought and razed them in the late 1980s. Grass was planted, and nine mature trees were left standing, creating what some consider a prime spot for permanent green space.
“We think there’s a need for a substantial plot of ground you can call a park, give people a little respite from the hustle and bustle of downtown,” said William Blaine, the leading lobbyist for a park on the site.
But village leaders hope to use that side of the street for a strip of $500,000 row houses, a development that would fit their ideal of a buzzing, densely populated downtown.
The officials are also keen on what they say would be $8,000 in annual property taxes that each row house would generate. But they say the biggest reason for developing the lot is that a park would be better elsewhere.
“Certainly [the lot] is open now,” said Trustee Tim Corcoran. “But if you look at it in the context of the total downtown business district, it’s on the very edge. It’s not in a place where it would build on the strengths of other places.”
The downtown has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. A seven-story condominium opened in 1999, and a condo and retail building–with such tenants as Corner Bakery and Caribou Coffee–went up in 2002. More condos and shops are planned for downtown.
A library is being built across the street from the vacant lot, as is another Village Hall, which will have two lawns officials that say will serve as open space. Some have proposed putting another park a few hundred feet down the block from the lot.
The knock on using the lot as a park is that it is too isolated. To the north is busy Central Avenue and to the south is a parking lot used by employees of nearby Bank One. William Cooney, Mt. Prospect director of community development, said that despite the plot’s grass and trees, he has never seen anyone use it as a park.
The lawns of the new Village Hall, as well as other small parks that could be built deeper into downtown, would be more likely to attract people, he said.
But Blaine, who founded Save Open Space Mt. Prospect to push for a park, said the new library would be an ample people magnet. The Village Hall lawns would be too small, he said, and the idea to put a park at the end of the block, where two houses sit, could be impractical.
“If that other property never gets into [village] control, there never will be a park there,” he said. “The conservative view is to do something with what you’ve got, while you’ve got it, and keep your options open for the future.”
The final decision rests with the Village Board, which at a meeting last month seemed disinclined to support a park. But a vote is perhaps two months away, so Blaine’s group plans to keep gathering petition signatures, handing out window signs and showing up at public meetings.
“Our job now is to meet with [village officials] and persuade them that this is an issue that has really got people’s attention,” he said. “People think there’s been enough building and don’t want any more. … They’re saying to me, `We moved out of Chicago. We don’t want another Chicago street corner there.'”
