Controversial Carvana Tower Set For Skokie Village Board Vote

SKOKIE, IL — A plan to build a 14-story illuminated glass tower beside a nature preserve goes before Skokie village trustees Monday.

A Carvana "car vending machine" tower is proposed for 9801 Woods Drive — to the immediate west of the Edens Expressway, east of Harms Woods, south of the Rand McNally campus and north of the Optima Old Orchard residential development.

Residents of the nearly 650-unit Optima towers, who make up about 3 percent of the village's population, have been vocal with concerns about the plan from the start.

They included: truck traffic, Carvana's poor business practices, the village's “betrayal” of residents and disrespect to the nearby Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, according to plan commission minutes. Objections have also come from birders and conservationists who say the tower threatens to kill large numbers of migratory birds.

Hundreds of residents and conservationists have written letters in opposition to the proposal, and more than 5,500 people have signed an online petition calling on the village to impose stronger measures to protect birds. One trustee said he plans to vote against the measure.

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Bret Sassenberg, the senior director of real estate and development for Carvana, said it was unfair to require additional bird-strike mitigation measures of his company. He said other nearby buildings were much larger than the proposed tower, and none of them have measures to reduce the number of bird strikes.

"I think best practices are not in place in any community, so we are betwixt and between what not to do or what best might be to do, and I don't know that anybody understands what best practices are," Sassenberg said at last month's plan commission meeting.

"Without an ordinance, I think what we are doing is something to be commended," he said. "Again, we're not being forced into what would be an ordinance that I don't think you're going to impugn upon anybody else in the community."

In Illinois, the Bird Safe Buildings Act, which was signed into law in July 2021 and took effect last month, requires newly constructed state-owned buildings to incorporate bird-friendly designs. Some municipalities have their own bird-safe ordinances, but Skokie is not one of them. Following the controversy over the Carvana proposal, State Rep. Denyse Wang Stoneback (D-Skokie) proposed an amendment to state wildlife law for buildings built after March 1, 2022, to limit unnecessary light between midnight and 7 a.m. during migratory season.

Tempe, Arizona-based Carvana offers used cars for sale through its website. Purchasers can opt for free home delivery from one of its inspection centers or choose to pick up their car at one of the company's "vending machine" towers.

The automobile retailer currently has more than two dozen such structures, the tallest of which is currently the 12-story Atlanta tower, according to the company. In the Chicago area, a tower in Oak Brook opened in 2019. Another is set to open later this year in Schaumburg, 18 miles west of the proposed Skokie site.

Carvana commissioned a report on the economic and revenue effects of the proposed tower from Phoenix, Arizona-based Applied Economics. According to the report, the village is projected to receive nearly $200,000 in sales tax revenue in the first year of operation, rising to $650,000 in the fifth year and $1.76 million in the 10th year.

The consultants said those sales projections were provided by Carvana, were not independently verified by Applied Economics and were based on the Atlanta tower, which first opened in November 2020. Skokie would only be in line to receive tax revenue from sales that are picked up at the tower or delivered to residents, according to the report.

"Although individuals in the region can currently purchase vehicles through Carvana for home delivery in which case the sales tax generated goes to the city or town in which the purchaser lives," it said, "the option of taking delivery of these vehicles at a vending machine in Skokie would create a significant stream of new revenues with limited impacts at the site."

Asher Bronfeld, president of the board of the Optima Maple building and spokesperson for the all the complex's boards with regard to the project, cited a recent survey on a social media group dedicated to Carvana reviews and experience. Of about 100 respondents, less than 18 percent had chosen to have their sales processed at a vending machine tower.

"A development like Carvana's, on the surface, looks like it would help substantially in reducing the deficit of Skokie over time, but are the numbers plausible enough that you can reasonably count on them? As presented, Carvana expects sales to increase at a 25 percent compounded growth rate for a 10-year period," Bronfeld told Patch. "Even if that number is close to being correct, is Skokie confident that the village will benefit proportionately on the sales tax revenue?"

The proposal was first presented to the plan commission in October. At the time, commissioners voted 5-2 in favor of approval with some conditions, including a requirement that the design incorporate bird-safe glass and dim or turn off its lights during migratory bird season.

In December, Bradley Hayes, a manager in the real estate division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, sent a letter to a Carvana manager with the department's recommendations to protect Harms Woods, which was declared a state nature preserve in 2019.

The recommendations called for all non-required lighting to be turned off between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. during spring and fall bird migration seasons, that blue light emissions should be minimized and that the facility not be more illuminated than is necessary for safety. The letter asked Carvana to notify the department of its decision regarding the recommendations. Patch requested any such response from a department spokesperson, but has yet to hear back.

Carvana representatives returned to the commission in January offering some modifications to the plan: truck deliveries will only take place from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. with trucks only using the driveway on the north side of the site, bird-friendly markings will be installed on the glass from the ground to about 55 feet up the 135.5-foot tower and lights will be dimmed to half-strength after 11 p.m. on three out of four sides. The eastern side, which faces the Edens Expressway, would remain illuminated.

Annette Prince, director of Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, described those measures as "woefully inadequate." She said the size of the building's footprint does not address the danger it poses to birds, using as an example the hundreds of birds she said are regularly killed by the Apple building along the Chicago River.

"The idea that if I only kill two people a week and my neighbors are killing 20, it's OK that I'm killing two people at my house every week," Prince said, "it really just doesn't stand to me as an argument that is convincing."

Bryan Lenz, of the American Bird Conservancy, also spoke during the Jan. 6 plan commission meeting. He said determining the effect of lighting conditions on bird behavior can be difficult.

"One thing we do know, though, is that shutting the lights off from outside and ones that are visible from the inside can make a difference in the early morning hours during migration," Lenz said. "Lights for safety are always OK. Birds are important, but people are more important — don't get mad at me for saying that, bird people."

Kimberly Polka, a Skokie resident and one of the petition organizers, said it should not be an issue to turn off the lights in the middle of the night.

"This is a real issue, and if it wasn't so close to the woods it would be a different thing," Polka said. "If it wasn't such a small building that you could completely see through that was lit from the inside, this would be a different situation."

Sassenberg said the company did not want to be penalized with additional requirements beyond the village code.

"We do believe that it is not any more or less dangerous than the buildings in and around us, and so we don't want to be the only dark tower out there," the Carvana director said. "Again, we are retail. We are trying to present our wares."

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Two plan commissioners — Jeff Burman and Mike Shah — voted in favor of adding a requirement that Carvana use bird-safe glass for the entire tower and that lights be turned off between midnight and 7 a.m. Commissioners Cynthia Franklin, Ross Mathee, Talia Gevaryahu and Paul Luke, its chair, voted against. Three other commissioners were absent.

After the meeting, Community Development Director Matt Brandmeyer said in a memo that Carvana officials had offered additional compromises.

Patterned window markings to reduce bird strikes will be used up to 63 feet, 10 inches on the tower. And during bird migration season — from March 15 to June 15 and from Aug. 15 to Nov. 15 — unnecessary lighting on all but the east side of the tower will be turned off from 1 a.m. to daylight, Brandmeyer said.

Trustees are scheduled to consider two items on Monday's agenda — an amendment to the zoning code that adds car dealerships to the allowable uses in the village's Office Research zoning district and a site plan that includes approval of the tower design.

Trustee James Johnson, the only trustee to come out against the project, said he was not away of any public comment in support of Carvana.

"In the letters we’ve received, residents have called the tower an 'eyesore,' a 'monstrosity,' an 'obscenity,' a 'death tower,' a 'monument to capitalism,' etc. We’ve even been sent photos of dead birds. To my knowledge, we have not received a single public comment in support of Carvana," Johnson said.

"I will be voting against this project – both the zoning amendment and the site plan," he confirmed in a statement posted to social media. "I’ve followed this case closely for over three months, have communicated with 100+ residents by email/phone, and I have no reservations about my decision. The only responsible and responsive action is for the Village Board to deny this project entirely."

A Carvana spokesperson did not respond to a request for an interview with a company representative. Patch requested comment from the rest of the village trustees Wednesday, but none were willing to go on record supporting or opposing the development.