Critics Cry Fowl As Skokie Trustees Welcome Carvana Tower

SKOKIE, IL — Following a contentious board meeting Monday, Skokie village trustees approved a plan to build a 137-foot illuminated glass tower of used cars beside a forest preserve.

The plan for the 14-story Carvana "vending machine" drew organized opposition from environmentalists and representatives of the roughly 3 percent of the village population who live at the adjacent Optima Old Orchard Woods.

Bret Sassenberg, senior director of real estate and development for the publicly traded Tempe, Arizona-based online used car dealer, said the company currently has 30 towers across the company, which it fills with cars that have already been purchased while they await pickup. Car buyers get a customized coin upon arrival that they can insert and watch their car descend.

"We wanted those cars in a protected building, we wanted those cars stacked in an automated system so we didn't use a lot of manpower to deal with that, and so the coin, the slot was created," Sassenberg said. "We essentially took an automated car system and called it a vending machine and made for a fun experience which lots of people have enjoyed over the years."

The site that Carvana chose for its just-approved tower — due to be its third in the Chicago area after Oak Brook and Schaumburg — led to a kind of opposition Sassenberg said the company had never faced before: bird strike reduction advocates.

As the proposal was amended, company representatives agreed to use specially marked glass aimed at deterring bird strikes and to turn off most of its lights during migratory bird seasons.

But the bird advocates continued to move the goalposts, Carvana's senior director told trustees Monday. He said the company's proposal for mitigating the risk of bird strikes would put the village somewhere between the standards imposed by San Francisco and New York.

"Not the city of Chicago, where there are tall buildings, dense buildings —and quite frankly where a lot of these folks are finding dead birds — but Skokie would be a suburban market with a very strict standard," he said.

"So we are volunteering to do that even though we don't think you need it, we really don't. And there's no evidence to suggest that Harms Woods is the epicenter of bird strike. I think you would have found that out at the Optima Tower years ago if it was. But this is what we're willing to do," Sassenberg continued.

"We believe that this should be an adequate approach to bird strike concerns for any development in Skokie, whether it's along the woods or somewhere else in the suburban market, we just don't know what more we can do," he said. "We believe we've tried to appease as many folks as possible about the issue, without guidance, without guidelines, without code or zoning."

George Kisiel, Carvana's planning consultant on the project, pointed out that current Office Research, or OR, zoning district would allow for 200 residential units to be built on the site, a much more intensive use than was being proposed.

"The OR district, as you can seen on the map, is limited to the Old Orchard Edens Expressway interchange and it's designed for high-intensity, expressway-oriented development," Kisiel said. "Needless to say, Carvana is expressway-oriented development, but it's extremely low intensity compared to what could be on the site."

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Before trustees voted 6-1 to amend the village zoning code and approve the development's site plan Monday, Sassenberg agreed to two additional conditions beyond those previously reported by Skokie Patch.

On a motion from Trustee Edie Sue Sutker, the Carvana representative agreed to turn off all lights not necessary for safety or signage from midnight to daylight during migratory bird season in the fall and spring.

And, following a motion from Trustee Khem Khoeun, Carvana agreed to allow village staff and researchers on the site to allow for a one-year survey to evaluate the success of bird strike mitigation strategies and survey the number of bird collisions at Carvana and Optima, with the understanding that neither would not have to make any further changes regardless the study's findings.

"Despite not having a village ordinance in place, Carvana has made concessions," Khoeun said, noting that the recommendations for things like when to turn the lights off and how many stories to cover with bird-safe glass have been inconsistent during the review process. "Carvana, at one point, conceded to the recommended guidelines published by the Chicago Audobon Society's lights-out initiative for buildings less than 20 stories tall, and we were told that this was still not sufficient for Carvana. This makes it really difficult to push Carvana to standards beyond existing guidelines that exist in this geographic area."

Khoen said Carvana officials had been hesitant to commit to a study of the effectiveness of bird strike mitigation measures because of issues with potential liability. But it would still be valuable to study both the Optima and Carvana towers to understand the effect of large glass buildings on birds in the area, she said, even without further mitigation down the road.

"This is a unique situation in Chicago's suburbs, and such a study would benefit not only the village of Skokie in directing policy for the future, but would help give guidance to help neighboring municipalities who inevitably will face similar projects," Khoeun said.

Trustee Ralph Klein also praised the company for its flexibility with regard adopting feather-friendly features.

"I think as far as the birds go, they have made concessions that nobody else has ever made in a building in the North Shore yet," Klein said. "So I think that speaks very highly for them."

Trustee Keith Robinson said before his vote that the debate over the tower had provided an opportunity for him to learn a lot about the migratory patterns of birds, ways to reduce the number of collisions with them and the science of nocturnal bird travel.

"I wondered if Carvana would set and lead a new standard of bird mitigation efforts in the village, state and nation, will this set a new standard for residential homes and buildings moving forward?" Robinson said.

"I for one, certainly have bird strikes in my own home a couple of times a month," he said. "So, all in all, I learned that this problem is bigger than this project in Skokie. The state of Illinois doesn't have statutes that address the reduction of bird mitigation or strikes. Furthermore it's a national concern, with all the glass structures in this area, and other state and national municipalities, there must be a plan to prioritize bird strikes and mitigation efforts. "

Before casting her vote, Trustee Alison Pure Slovin cited the economic benefit the dealership would bring.

"I've done my due diligence. I've spoken to residents who've reached out to me. I have read every single email that has come across my desk," Pure Slovin said. "I know this is very emotional for all of us, including myself, but I am responsible for the economic development as a trustee of this village as well."

More than 30 people spokes during the period of the meeting allotted to comments from the public, with nearly all of them opposing the project.

One 44-year Skokie resident, Jim Barnard, suggested offering more constructive suggestions for changes to the Carvana proposal.

"Let them put the thing right where they want to put it. Tear out the parking lot, make a big hole, put it underground, park in there just like Grant Park, cover the top of it with dirt, and make a beautiful park out of it. Everybody's happy," Barnard said. "You can still sell your cars. It won't make a bit of difference whether they're aboveground or below ground, they still have to come out."

The tower's proximity to the otherwise billboard-free Edens Expressway and the eyeballs of the affluent North Shore motorist are part of the appeal of the site, which has led some critics to describe it as the equivalent of an "illegal billboard."

Charles Saxe, a member of the village's Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission, said he was mystified at how the village board would approve the tower in that location.

"This project has the potential to become an icon for the absurd — such as the Berwyn Spindle, or the Hamden Connecticut Ghost Parking Lot or the Pittsfield Massachusetts parking shipwreck," Saxe said. "Imagine Skokie joining that lineup as the town with the car vending machine in the forest preserve. A 14-story beaming, befuddling amusement for thousands of motorists on the Edens Expressway. In addition to killing birds and degrading our urban ecosystem, this project is bludgeoning the village's reputation."

Carvana officials have offered a $200,000 bond to cover the cost of demolishing the tower if the company goes bankrupt and leaves the tower vacant for two years. The company was founded in 2012 and last year became the third-fastest to be listed on the Fortune 500, where it debuted at No. 483.

Asher Bronfeld, a board president of one of the three towers at the 660-unit Optima Old Orchard, Skokie's tallest structure, emphasized that village staff had not independently verified the growth projections provided by the company and questioned whether trustees could be confident the village would see as much revenue as the company suggested.

"Before you ask us to live with it, I ask you are you knowledgeable about what you're getting from Carvana," Bronfeld said.

If Carvana's estimates of 25 percent compound annual growth in sales processed at the site come to fruition, the condo board president said, residents of the buildings should expect an increase from the four trucks a day, six days a week projected in the tower's first year to 15 daily truck trips by the tower's sixth year.

"Is that the neighborhood that Optima residents expected to be with, to expect to see out their windows when they purchased or rented in Optima?" Bronfeld asked. "Eventually, as you get closer to year 10, it's 20-plus, it's up to 25 trucks a day."

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Read more: Controversial Carvana Tower Set For Skokie Village Board Vote

The lone member of the village board to vote against the proposal, Trustee James Johnson, announced his opposition to the proposed development ahead of the meeting.

Johnson said his opposition was based primarily on environmental factors, listing numerous conservation groups opposed to the plan and quoting from a letter sent to him the day before by Deb Shore, the 23-year village resident, former commissioner for the Skokie Environment Commission and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and recently appointed Midwest regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who opposed the development in her personal capacity.

Several other trustees called Johnson's announcement of his "no" vote premature.

"I do not cast a vote when I have not gotten the information," Klein said. "When you cast a vote three weeks before the information comes, you make a fool out of yourself. I ascertained information. I looked at it, I weighed it, and I have to vote aye."

Sutker, who said she had lost sleep over the issue, said she could not understand how someone could announce their vote ahead of time without knowing the motion on the floor.

Before voting in favor of the plan, Sutker cited the more intensive potential uses allowed in the zoning district under, even without an amendment to make car dealerships an allowable use.

"This property will be developed. The property is zoned OR office and research which means that currently, without any board approval or input from the community, a high-intensity glass office building, glass hotel, glass senior living facility or residential development could be developed on this land," Sutker said.

However, the definition of the OR zoning district in Skokie's village code suggests trustees must individually approve site plans for all new developments proposed within it.

"Because of the unique character of properties located within this district and its proximity to the Edens Expressway, the Old Orchard Interchange, Cook County Forest Preserve and adjacent residential properties in other municipalities, all properties within this district require site plan approval," according to the zoning code.

"I hope and expect that this robust discussion will prompt changes into future," Sutker said. "I need to vote based on whether this is a reasonable land use and whether mitigations were put in place."

The harshest rebuke for Johnson's opposition to the Carvana tower came from Khoen, who, during the roll call vote, delivered more than 10 minutes of scathing prepared remarks. Khoen said trustees were being unfairly painted as non-responsive to community concerns.

"Our words and actions are continuously manipulated with half-truths that weave a single narrative and move an outside political agenda forward, this is not the first time or issue that we have stayed silent while my fellow trustee would rather play politics than to sit down and to work together," Khoen said.

"His intent to undermine the very people sitting on this board today and our current system of government — it feels a bit familiar to me," she added. "In the course of raising awareness for the Carvana proposal, this issue became highly politicized. Many political alliances were made. In particular, it has been used as a tool to leverage political gain by Trustee Johnson to question the very difficult work and position we are in. The integrity of the entire board has been questioned by an individual who in his zealousness selectively presents the facts that further his story and has disrespected the work of this board."

As Khoen's remarks continued and midnight approached, outbursts could be heard from several members of the crowd, at least one of whom walked out after shouting profanity.

After Mayor George Van Dusen gaveled down interruptions to the trustee from attendees, he eventually interjected himself.

"OK, trustee," Van Dusen asked. "We've—"

"I'm almost done, sir," Khoen said, before continuing to explain her commitment to re-imagining a sustainable future for the village.

"We have the opportunity to be creative and forward-thinking about our solutions, but we need to be able to do this in a way that's thoughtful, collaborative, intentional," she said. "And without having our own colleague behave as if he's on higher moral ground and undermining us every step of the way."

The mayor let out an audible sigh before whispering, "Come on."