Calls for Illinois to pay for environmental study on state property
Tinley Park officials are holding off ordering a new study of environmental issues at a shuttered state hospital as an area legislator makes another push to get Illinois to foot the bill.
Sen. Michael Hastings, D-Tinley Park, introduced resolutions Tuesday that would have the state pay for the study as well as move along an appraisal process to get an updated value for the 280-acre site, northwest of Harlem Avenue and 183rd Street.
At Tuesday’s Village Board meeting, trustees agreed to postpone a vote on hiring an outside firm to update a 2014 study of the former mental health hospital in response to Hastings’ resolution.
The senator said his ultimate goal is to compel the state to shoulder the cost of cleaning up contaminants on the property, including asbestos and underground storage tanks.
“The state of Illinois caused that problem. The state should bear the cost of the environmental cleanup,” Hastings told the Daily Southtown.
He said he lives a little more than a mile from the property and has worked for several years since the hospital’s closing to force the state to take action.
“The goal is to turn the property into an economically viable site” for redevelopment, he said.
Tinley Park officials are in negotiations with a group of developers, Melody Square, that is proposing 435 single-family homes described as active-adult age-restricted housing targeting buyers 55 and older, as well as a 200-unit luxury senior apartment building. Separately, another 60 single-family detached homes are proposed as well as 100 town homes.
Melody Square expects the development would cost $350 million, according to Village Manager Dave Niemeyer. The group is seeking nearly $69 million in tax increment financing help and other incentives from the village.
Partners in Melody Square include national homebuilders K. Hovanian Homes and M/I Homes, along with commercial property owner Rick Heidner. Another partner is David Dorgan, who served as Tinley Park’s village manager from 1991 until 2003.
In a recent interview posted on Tinley Park’s website, Dorgan said Melody Square had hired its own environmental consultant, V3 Cos., to advise the developers on the environmental issues the site poses.
In 2014, when initial studies of the site were done, it was estimated that decontaminating the property and demolishing 45 buildings on the site would cost $12.4 million.
Along with a resolution on the environmental study, Hastings’ second resolution would require the state to complete the process of getting an updated appraisal of the property.
In 2015, Tinley Park planned to pay the state what was then an asking price of $4.16 million for the site, but eventually opted not to go ahead with the purchase.
Village officials have said they’d like to buy the property in order to have greater control over redevelopment.
Once the state determines the site’s current value, the village would have an opportunity to buy it.
Hastings said that along with the resolutions, he is working on legislation concerning a sale or possible transfer of the property. A simple transfer of the land at no cost or nominal cost to the village “will be an option” considered, he said.
The resolutions will be heard in committee, and the legislator said he has high confidence state officials will agree to undertake the environmental study. Hastings said such a study could cost about $150,000.
In one of the resolutions, Hastings notes that the property in its current condition poses a burden on local as well as state taxpayers, with the state spending about $500,000 annually on upkeep. He said that those costs include security on the site and maintaining buildings.
Officials have said that although the property is in a tax increment financing district, its location in Cook County makes any large-scale commercial development unlikely because of higher property taxes.
Melody Square’s proposal for the site was one of three redevelopment plans submitted to the village last October, with Renaissance Downtowns Urban Holdings and UrbanStreet Group also filing plans.
The Village Board last month approved an exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Melody Square to continue working on issues such as land uses and incentives. The agreement is in effect for six months but could be extended.
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