Much like the rest of the village of Forest Park, the Roos Recreation Center lot at Harrison Street has a history more than a century long — and its history will soon expand, both physically and figuratively.
In 2013, the Park District of Forest Park bought the 85,000-square-foot building on Harrison Street, constructed in 1918, for $499,000. A month later, a portion of the ceiling collapsed. The village then slated the structure for emergency demolition.
But when the reconstructed 15,000-square-foot building reopened in 2018 as Roos Recreation Center, visitors far surpassed its capacity, leading to a discussion about how to expand the building.
The park district expected about 400 Roos Recreation Center memberships for its first year open, but over 900 people signed up.
“We grew out of that building probably within six months of being here,” said Jackie Iovinelli, executive director at the Park District of Forest Park since 2018. “That building was built with the intention of expanding in the future. We just didn’t realize the future was going to be six months.”
Expansion plans, including funding and construction, took years.
“It had to be scaled back significantly, just with grants and finances,” Iovinelli said. “It was always kind of known since I’ve been here that this is something that’s coming down the pipe.”
In addition to making room for more members, the park district needs more space for its day camp for kids after school and in the summer, which the Roos Recreation Center was intended to house.
In the park district’s field across the street from Roos Recreation Center, a small building can hold about 100 kids, though there have been more than that to sign up for day camps.
“We’re maxed out on our services. We don’t have any more indoor space,” Iovinelli said of the Roos Recreation Center. “We have to, unfortunately, turn kids away for our day camp program because we just don’t have the space to house it.”
One of the park district’s options was to renovate the Grant-White School for an estimated $5 million and host its day camp there. But Iovinelli said that District 91 is looking for someone to lease the Grant-White building for a few years, and the park district wanted a long-term lease, at least 30 years long.
So, they’ve settled instead on expanding the Roos. Although the park district is meeting with three architects to discuss plans and cost for expansion, Iovinelli said there’s the option to double the size of the building’s fitness room and build up and off the back of the building, on its north side.
“It’s a little bit more expensive than renovating a building, but we need it,” Iovinelli said. She estimated the expansion will start at around $10 million.
The Roos legacy
The namesake of Roos Recreation Center is much larger than the building itself.
In 1868, Bernard Roos founded the Waldheim Cemetery. In 1897, his son Albert founded A. Roos and Sons Bank, which would become the Forest Park State Bank, where Junction Diner and Twisted Cookie now sit.
Albert’s son, Fred, was an Illinois State Representative and attorney for the village. His other son, Albert C., founded the Forest Park Businessmen’s Association in 1912, which would become Forest Park’s Chamber of Commerce. Albert C. was also president of Kiwanis Club, Proviso Township School District’s treasurer, and the village’s collector.
The Roos Cedar Chest Company built the structure at 7329 Harrison St., where it sold hope chests to people around the world from the 1920s to 1951. Then the Fisher Pen Co. and Castle Soap Co. moved in before the building became vacant in the 1990s.
Although the building was slated to become lofts and townhomes in the early 2000s, the bank foreclosed on a $15 million loan to the developer, and the site fell into disrepair before the park district bought it and tore it down in 2013.
“We have been trying to be creative on how to expand space,” Iovinelli said, so that people, especially day-camp kids, can enjoy the park district’s 20-acre park and fields, plus the pool and playground next to the Roos Recreation Center.
“It’s paradise for a kid to spend their summer,” Iovinelli said. “But it’s heartbreaking that we can’t serve everybody. And that’s our goal.”
