Homer Glen officials are trying to decide what renovations they would like for a future village hall at the Woodbine property, but a move there by this spring is looking questionable to some.
“The bottom line is nothing’s been decided,” Mayor Jim Daley said.
Special meetings have been held between village officials, staff members and Williams Architects of Itasca since September. More are scheduled for the weeks ahead as plans are devised for the remodeling of the Woodbine banquet hall/clubhouse into a village hall, officials said.
Daley has said that he still hopes the village can move in this spring, but Trustee George Yukich said that based on the current pace there is “no way” that will happen and that the remodel will probably not even start until August. Yukich has announced he is running against Daley for mayor next year.
Last winter, Homer Glen purchased Woodbine Golf Course, 14240 W 151st St., including the banquet hall/clubhouse on the roughly 100 acres, for $3.3 million. The village currently rents its village hall at a different location, and moving to the newly purchased property will free the village from the cost of renting, Trustee Tedd Kagianas said.
“It’s the absolute deal of the century,” Daley said of the purchase.
The village has budgeted $2.25 million for construction costs alone related to the remodel, village treasurer John Sawyers said earlier this year.
Plus there is an added cost of architectural services for the remodel. The agreement with Williams Architects includes a $170,000 basic services fee as well as additional fees, according to a village supplement, and the village has a budget of more than $300,000 for architectural services, Sawyers said.
The remodel is necessary because the banquet hall/clubhouse was not constructed to be a municipal building, Daley said.
Initial ideas presented by Williams Architects have included adding bathrooms although the building already has several, and creating office spaces for positions that currently do not exist, such as a public relations, human resources and IT consultants,Yukich said.
“It’s not the Taj Mahal,” Yukich said, explaining dissatisfaction with some features that could be added in with the remodel and their potential cost.
Additional copy area space and coffee break areas have also been presented as options, he said.
It is also possible that the village board room, expected to be the largest room of the remodeled building, will be utilized as a community room when local government is not meeting, Daley said.
Nothing, however, has been set in stone and plans are still under development, village officials said.
The potential millions on the remodel of the building are only a portion of what the village plans to pay to make over the entire Woodbine property.
Plans call for the golf course to be converted into “one of the nicest parks that any community will ever build,” Daley said.
Kagianas said that he looks forward to the day he can take his grandchildren to the park.
“That would be a great joy to me … to go out there with a picnic basket and a kite,” Kagianas said.
The village may invest in other Woodbine improvements as well. Resolving flooding issues experienced by properties near the golf course should be looked into and more than 100 dead trees on the property should be removed for safety reasons, Kagianas said.
