Residents Question Approval Of Downtown Skokie Hotel Development

SKOKIE, IL — Despite opposition from residents at last week's village board meeting, trustees are scheduled to grant final approval Tuesday to plans for a downtown Skokie hotel.

The proposed development also includes a plan for the village to purchase from the developer an adjacent parcel — currently the site of Annie's Pancake House — for a future residential development, as well to build a multi-story parking garage on a site of a small park at Niles Avenue and Oakton Terrace.

Trustees unanimously granted preliminary approval to the plan at their Dec. 7 meeting. Then, nearly a dozen residents who addressed the issue at the board's Jan. 4 meeting called for the project to be delayed pending further public involvement.

Resident Kathleen Boyle said the development must be halted until citizens have more opportunities to review and discuss it openly.

"While no one would disagree that a robust business community benefits us all, we must also be present and aware of the impact new developments may have on our quality of life," Boyle told village trustees in a public comment.

"With that in mind, I am asking that the Hilton Hotel, parking structure, and adjacent residential developments be suspended until a time when public meetings and discussion can take place, and the plans, a traffic study, and an environmental impact study can be presented, allowing time for them to be reviewed and commented on by the public," she said.

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According to a timeline of the development process produced by village staff following the comments, developer E&M Strategic Development has been interested in building a hotel in downtown Skokie since 2016. Feasibility studies in 2017 and 2018 determined there was sufficient demand for a new hotel.

In June 2018, the developer explained they needed millions of dollars of public subsidies to finance the project, so village staff recommended the creation of a tax increment financing, or TIF, district, according to village staff. Such special taxing districts capture property tax revenue from increases in assessed value, which then can be used to support developments within them.

The hotel proposal first came to the village's Appearance Commission, where renderings were revealed at meetings in May 2019 and again in August 2019, according to the timeline provided by staff. During the summer, village officials held the required public hearings to establish the TIF district, and in August 2019 village officials held a downtown redevelopment open house, where the project was also discussed.

In September 2019, the village board created the 6.25-acre Oakton-Niles TIF District, which includes the site of the proposed hotel and several adjoining parcels. For the next decade, and potentially longer, any increases in property tax revenue will be set aside. According to the development agreement, the $43 million hotel project is eligible to get up to $13.5 million in TIF funding from the village.

The development received approval from the Plan Commission in October 2019. According to village staff, owners of downtown retail businesses — including Ignite Gaming, Sketchbook Brewing and The Crazy Greek— enthusiastically welcomed the development. Village staff estimated hotel guests will spend at least $12.5 million a year, including nearly $2.1 million at local restaurants.

"The hotel development is replacing a functionally obsolete office building that has been vacant since 2014 and as such will eliminate blight and the continued decrease of commercial property tax values as evidenced in the TIF report and justification," according to village staff. "Without the hotel development, it is probable that the area will continue to decline in value."

READ MORE: Deal For 8-Story Hotel In Downtown Skokie Approved By Trustees

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Of the 11 residents who submitted public comments for last week's village board meeting, 10 of them called for the rejection of the hotel plan or its delay pending additional public involvement, while the other questioned the project's impact on affordable housing and environmental sustainability.

Skokie, like most Illinois municipalities, has conducted its village board meetings remotely since Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order in response to the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

But unlike many of its north suburban neighbors, the village does not allow contemporaneous public participation. Skokie residents are not permitted to participate directly during the period of public comment required under the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

Instead, commenters must submit their remarks in writing by email or post, which the Illinois Attorney General's Office has determined is a allowable alternative to live public comment under Pritzker's executive orders. Skokie Patch requested copies of the comments the day after the meeting. Village Manager John Lockerby provided them a week later.

"I am very concerned about the way in which the Board of Trustees has acted secretly and swiftly on this development, and am writing to ask that the Hilton Hotel project be suspended until after the pandemic at which time your board meetings will be held in public again," Louis Mercer said.

"You are elected officials acting in the interest of your citizens, not a rubber stamp committee allowing for any and all corporate interests to do what they will with our village's land. Please pause this project and make more room for public comment and neighborhood input."

"Why don't you focus on solving the problems your residents and parents actually have?" asked resident Andrea Howland.

"Spoiler alert — no one wants to live on Touhy or Dempster. The Holiday Inn down the street and the Doubletree are rarely at capacity," she added. "I'm beyond frustrated at the poor governance I've seen over the last few years. You need to start responding to the residents' concerns not running away and hiding behind closed doors."

James Johnson, an independent candidate for village trustee, said the village was operating under an obsolete downtown development plan put together more than 15 years ago.

"The intention of this project may be good, but it will have negative side-effects, particularly for environmental sustainability and affordable housing. When talking about environmental sustainability, keep in mind that the Village has now officially failed one of the goals of its Sustainability Plan — to conduct a Village-wide greenhouse gas emissions audit by 2021," Johnson said. "This is the year we are supposed to finish our first Sustainability Plan, and draft a better one for the future, so it's alarming to watch the Village support so many high-impact, corporate constructions without consideration of their long-term impact."

Resident Maggie Vandermeer said the fact the development plan had not undergone a sustainability review shows the village's sustainability plan to be an empty promise.

"Instead of pushing through projects like the Hilton Deal with minimal transparency and community engagement, I implore you to do the work to inform the community of these proposals and their implications for ALL residents, and to actively seek out community input. This is your obligation as our representatives," Vandermeer said.

"If we have learned nothing else from this pandemic, it is the importance of taking care of each other. We cannot claim to be doing that while threatening to displace cherished neighbors who make our schools and community so incredibly rich," she continued. "That wealth — that social capital, if you will, should not be sacrificed on the altar of gentrification. This is a question of ethics on many levels and most fundamentally, it is a question of our identity as a community. Once again, I ask you to suspend this deal in order to have a broad and much-needed community conversation that includes these issues."