The decade-long effort to bring a CTA train station back to downtown Skokie culminates at about 4:45 a.m. Monday, when the new Yellow Line station at Oakton Street officially opens for service.
Its potential to draw pedestrian traffic and businesses with the lure of convenient transit access has village officials and area businesses hopeful the new station will help revitalize downtown Skokie.
“It’s the shot in the arm we believe the downtown needs,” said Randy Miles, president of the Independent Merchants of Downtown Skokie and owner of Village Inn Pizzeria, 8050 Lincoln Ave.
“This station brings (Chicago) and the north suburbs a little closer to us,” said Miles, who pointed to a variety of small businesses that have opened in the downtown area over the last five years. “They, too, can enjoy the fruits of what we’ve been doing.”
At the northwest corner of Skokie Boulevard and Oakton Street, the new station sits on the same spot where a train station once operated from the late 1920s to late 1940s. It was eventually abandoned and later torn down with the inception of the Howard to Dempster “Skokie Swift” service.
But in 2001, the village got a grant to conduct a feasibility study for possible station locations along the Yellow Line. That study, finished two years later, concluded that a downtown Skokie station was needed and viable.
Village officials lobbied for federal funds needed to carry out the project, and in subsequent years the village got roughly $14 million in Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant funds to build the Oakton Street station. The village committed about $6 million through tax increment financing district funds toward the project, and construction began in mid-2010.
The work progressed “rather smoothly,” said village spokeswoman Ann Tennes.
“At times there were customary delays, as can be expected on a project of this magnitude,” she said, adding that the construction effort required the coordination of multiple federal and local agencies.
“We hoped it would open earlier, but early 2012 (or) spring 2012 has been the target,” Tennes said.
The final price tag is still being calculated, but Tennes said the village expects the project to stay within the initial $20 million budget.
“This is an important milestone for the village,” Tennes said. “Having two CTA stops in our community is important for our community and economic development, as well as our housing values.”
The station will help attract tenants to the adjacent Illinois Science and Technology Park, said Richard Groh, general manager of the roughly 650,000-square-foot science and research facility that opened in 2005.
“It will give tenants the ability to pull talent from downtown (Chicago),” Groh said. “That’s what they’re really looking for.”
The tech park currently operates a free shuttle service between the Dempster Street CTA station and the park, Groh said. On average, about 750 employees use that service per month. But with the new station dropping train commuters virtually at the facility’s front door, Groh said that shuttle service might be reduced in the coming months.
Other local business owners also expressed excitement at transit riders being deposited at the doorstep of downtown Skokie.
“It’s going to be awesome for our business, and more importantly, for Skokie,” said Mike Bleier, owner of Drive Cleaning, an environmentally friendly dry cleaning service on Oakton Street, steps from the new station.
“Who takes the train most?” Bleier questioned. “It’s commuters wearing shirts and ties and suits. So we’re perfectly positioned.”
But not everyone eagerly anticipates the station’s presence.
“I find it kind of annoying,” said Justin Anderson, 29, a Chicago resident who rides the Yellow Line five days a week to his job at a financial publishing company.
Anderson said the new station will increase his commute time from Howard Street to Dempster, making him more likely to miss the bus to his office.
Another Yellow Line commuter, Tonika Rogers, 34, said she’ll have to leave even earlier than her current departure time of 6 a.m. to travel from her home on Chicago’s South Side to her job at Macy’sin Old Orchard Mall.
“I guess it’s not so swift anymore,” she said.
Commuters like Rogers and Anderson might feel more frustration if Evanston officials are successful in their efforts to bring a Yellow Line stop to Evanston. Officials there are working to find funding sources for future studies and the eventual construction of a proposed station at Asbury Avenue.
While the Skokie Oakton Street station opens for service Monday morning, the village has planned a community celebration at the station for June 24.
