Room for one more tall building?

Odds and ends with some a bit odder than others.

Go tall: Beyond the decrepit Mohr Concrete site hulking over Harlem and the Ike, some might think Oak Park has run out of sites for another tall building. Well, here’s one hiding in plain sight. 

At Lake and Harlem sits what has become a one-story strip mall that is in seeming decline. Built decades back by Sy Taxman, the development was a confidence-booster for a downtown that had lost its way. With The Gap, Old Navy, TGIFridays, it was sort of high end and proved that Oak Park could attract hot national chains. Never been to Wild Fork myself but more of a niche player than its high visibility corner might warrant.

There has been talk over the years of flattening the strip mall and building up. Makes sense as the four tall buildings in the downtown have been rental successes. The only question is whether Oak Park could build something uglier than the high rise at Harlem and South Boulevard. 

We could sponsor a competition.

Whither West Sub: Our coverage of West Sub comes at a furious pace. Has the current failed owner managed to get a clinic or two reopened? Has the guy who actually owns the hospital and its property found a back-door entry for a possible new operator by leasing space to Insight Medical on the hospital’s River Forest campus? And now it is all in court in a battle over allegedly unpaid rent.

Meanwhile, today we’re reporting on the actual impact of West Sub’s disintegration over 18 months as it closed all of its maternity services. Our Jessica Mordacq explains where women on the West Side are delivering their babies and the wider reality of the gaping Black maternal health crisis in these neighborhoods.

Forest Park and short-term rentals: Short-term rentals look all gauzy and wonderful in the TV ads. Though there is a current ad up with a notably creepy vibe between a stepdad and teen stepdaughter. In real life, though, these vacation-stay alternatives can have a negative impact on a quiet neighborhood. 

That’s the situation in Forest Park right now. Neighbors on south Lathrop Avenue keep coming back to the village council looking for relief from a person who bought a single-family home on the block and is operating it as a full-time short-term rental. The complaints are the typical ones. Too many people partying too hard, hogging parking and making nuisances of themselves.

Forest Park officials seem inclined to look at creating an ordinance to regulate these uses. They’ll have many and various ordinances to crib from as most towns are working to get a grip on this.

Forest Park has a broader issue with its limited and diminishing stock of single-family homes. Post-real-estate-bubble in 2008, some number of those homes were purchased and repurposed as rentals. Not good.