Stormwater planning captured the attention of Winnetka officials and residents in 2017. So did the potential creation of a tax tool some village council members hope could finance development in the Elm Street business district. Bracketing the year was One Winnetka, the residential-retail complex that had also loomed large in 2015 and 2016.
In January, the village council preliminarily approved David Trandel’s One Winnetka project, after 19 public hearings held over 21 months. It was to feature 55 to 62 condominiums and apartments in three buildings on Elm Street and Lincoln Avenue, near the downtown Metra station. The 1.38 acre site was to have 34,000 square feet of retail space below the residences. The project was also to have some underground parking and two parking garages on either side of the complex, one belonging to the village.
At the time, Trandel, who then-Village President Gene Greable urged to work quickly on the project, said, “I’m a little choked up by this, because I didn’t think this would ever happen.”
At that point, he had 180 days to get final approval, and then would have 90 days to take out construction permits.
Instead, Trandel in December asked the council to approve plan changes he said were necessary to keep costs down. He asked to replace the proposed east and west garages with a second level of underground parking under the development, and wanted to shift the building 40 feet to the east, relieving him of the need to win a Lincoln Avenue right of way, and pay for new sewer lines under the street.
Trustees told Trandel he must present the changes to the village’s plan commission, zoning board of appeals, and design review board in 2018, before the council makes its decision. That left the project once more in limbo, with residents complaining of what some described as “One Winnetka fatigue.”
Negotiations between Winnetka and the Cook County Forest Preserve District, on whose land trustees hoped to create stormwater detention, were sometimes bumpy in 2017.
Initial plans for forest preserve detention in west Winnetka were too expensive, Trustee Chris Rintz told the board in February. Tree removal fees alone would have run up to $15 million – too high for a plan whose costs were to rise no higher than $57 million.
The plan was revised with fewer, smaller, and deeper detention areas. On Aug. 1, after almost two years of talks, Winnetka signed a memorandum of understanding with the Forest Preserve to use roughly 18.6 acres of the preserve’s Skokie Lagoon property for stormwater detention. A packed audience applauded when the council approved the memorandum.
Winnetka is continuing talks with the Winnetka Park District, Winnetka School District 36, and New Trier Township High School District 203 to store flood water on land those bodies own.
In July, trustees began talking about creating a tax increment finance, or TIF, district to help pay for infrastructure improvements in the downtown Elm Street business district.
Despite a consultant’s estimate that such a district could generate more than $131.9 million over a little more than 23 years, board members were wary of the effect it could have on Winnetka’s schools and park districts. Rintz, now village president, said a TIF district would keep infrastructure costs off property taxpayers’ shoulders. However, he eventually agreed with colleagues that village staff and consultants should narrow the list of potential TIF projects. Consideration is expected to continue in 2018.
The year got off to a contentious start at New Trier Township High School District 203. In January, some district parents complained about a seminar program focused on racial and civil rights, saying it lacked diversity because it didn’t include conservative points of view.
Administrators and school board members supported the seminar day, as did some other parents and district residents. Attendance figures released in March showed 77 percent of students attended the seminar day programs – lower than a regular school day, but significantly higher than the previous year’s effort, district officials said.
The completion of New Trier’s Winnetka campus addition was less contentious. Work on the project, largely funded by a 2014 $89 million referendum, began in 2015 with the demolition of three older buildings.
It was substantially complete by its official Oct. 15 opening, with a new cafeteria and library, science and multimedia labs, more classrooms, a television and radio station, rehearsal spaces, two new theater spaces and an art exhibit gallery.
Although costs had originally been envisioned at about $100.3 million, the number climbed to $104.8 million. Final work was to be complete by early 2018, construction officials said in December.
This year saw more than one changing of the guard. In April, Greable made way for Rintz. Robert Dearborn and John Swierk became the village’s newest trustees.
In April, two candidate slates vied for seats on the New Trier Township government board. It was the first contested race in recent township history and became a debate on whether three independent candidates – Bob Costello, Kathy Myalls and Stacey Woehrle – were bringing partisan politics into a traditionally non-partisan arena. The independents lost to four caucus-endorsed candidates: Kevin Boyd, Gail Schnitzer Eisenberg, Elliott Robbins, and John Thomas.
District 203 said goodbye in June to Superintendent Linda Yonke, who spent more than 13 years with New Trier, the last 11 as superintendent. Yonke handed the reins to Paul Sally, a 22-year district veteran who last served as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
Kathy Routliffe is a reporter for Pioneer Press.
