A Blank Lot in the Heart of Town

Special Dispatch · 5 Minute Read

Post Office Open House Monday, June 15, 6–8 p.m. Village Hall Council Chambers, 510 Green Bay Road Questions: 847-501-6000 Drop in any time to view the preliminary concepts for the former post office site, talk with Village staff and the consultant team, and mark what you like and don't. Can't make it? An online activity and survey mirroring the open house will run for several weeks: villageofwinnetka.org/395/Post-Office-Site-Redevelopment or helloinput.org/winnetka-post-office-site. This is a 40-year decision. It's worth a few minutes of yours.

Have your say on Winnetka's post office site.

For the first time in 40 years, the corner at 512 Chestnut Street is a clean slate. The post office has moved to Lincoln Avenue, the old building is gone, and a freshly seeded lawn now sits where our community once mailed their packages. What will replace it is an open question — and no small one.

This is the rare civic choice that will help define the look, feel, and financial outlook of downtown Winnetka for generations, and the Village is asking residents to narrow the choices. A consultant team from Teska Associates has put a range of preliminary concepts before the community, from doing very little to building quite a lot. Per the Village Website, concept refinement is occurring now until Council action in the Fall — reportedly as soon as October.

Here are the main options, with the case for each and against, so you can form your own view.

Leave it as open lawn

For: It is the simplest and cheapest path, preserves a rare patch of downtown green, and keeps options open for future generations. Open space, once built on, rarely comes back.

Against: It becomes an underused gap rather than a destination. The site also generates no tax revenue toward the Village's mounting capital costs, and treats a defining downtown corner as a question deferred.

A designed public gathering space (a "town square")

For: A true civic plaza — room for farmers markets, concerts, holiday events and a place to stroll after dinner — speaks to what survey respondents said they most want downtown. It gives Winnetka a shared front porch and a clear identity for the heart of the village.

Against: A designed plaza carries a real price tag — the earlier version was estimated at $8 million — plus ongoing maintenance, with no direct revenue to offset it. Some residents also note the village already has gathering spots — such as the Hubbard Woods bandshell and Dwyer Park. Both spots are already used thoughtfully, and another spot is not necessary.

A commercial anchor (for example, a restaurant)

For: A destination restaurant or café could draw evening foot traffic to a downtown that several residents describe as quiet after 7 p.m., while generating sales-tax revenue and animating the block. The Village could also sell the land to fund capital needs.

Against: It puts a private building on public land, and opinions split on how much commercial space the village needs. Parking and scale would have to be handled carefully to avoid crowding the site.

Full mixed-use: shops and homes together

For: A mixed-use building — retail or dining below, residences above, parking tucked underground — can do several jobs at once: add downtown vitality, broaden the tax base, and create housing within walking distance of the train and shops.

Against: This is the most intensive option and the one that most often raises concerns about height and density. Residents repeatedly pointed to One Winnetka and the Chase Bank site as developments they felt were too large for the village's scale.

What happens to the parking?

The lot beside the old post office has long doubled as public parking for the West Elm business district, and keeping public parking is a consideration in every concept. Exactly how many spaces survive under each option isn't clear yet, but here is the general direction.

• Under the open lawn proposal, surface parking stays — the recent restoration kept a resurfaced lot alongside the new green.
• A designed plaza reshapes the site, and a larger gathering space generally means fewer surface spaces unless they move to the perimeter.
• A commercial anchor would take part of the footprint, with remaining parking likely surface or shared.
• The mixed-use concepts include underground parking, which can preserve — or even increase — public spaces by freeing the surface above.

If parking is your priority, ask the consultant team for the counts behind each board.

The budget backdrop

Whatever the Village chooses will press on finances that are already stretched. That makes the post office a fiscal decision as much as an aesthetic one — each concept either draws down scarce funds or helps replenish them.

It helps to separate two things that often get run together. The operating budget covers day-to-day services. The capital plan — a record of roughly $39.5 million this year — is a one-time list of big projects: roads, water mains, stormwater, streetscapes.

The two are linked, though. The capital plan leans on grants, borrowing and a pair of new revenue streams — higher utility rates and a 1% home-rule sales tax earmarked for downtown — and whatever those sources don't cover ultimately falls back on the same taxpayers who fund everything else. That is why this corner matters to more than this corner.

A public plaza is a cost with no revenue to repay it, drawing from the same pot as roads and pipes and adding upkeep the operating budget must carry year after year. A commercial or mixed-use building could instead broaden the tax base and ease the pressure on both — at the price of more density. Winnetka's Aaa bond rating gives it room to borrow; how much to lean on that for a public amenity versus a revenue-generating use is part of what residents are being asked to weigh.

The 'downsizers' question

One thread runs through nearly every Winnetka development conversation: housing. Many longtime residents want to stay in the village but no longer want a big single-family house.

In the Village's own survey, the strongest support for any housing came for for-sale, "Winnetka-scale" condominiums aimed at empty nesters — homes that let people age in place near the friends, shops and library they know, and that free up larger houses for younger families.

Skeptics counter that residential ranked last among site priorities overall, that "no residential" was the most popular housing answer, and that rental projects like One Winnetka are already adding units nearby. Both views are on the record, and the Village has not decided between them.

The window is now

The post office site has been studied, on and off, for four decades, and many residents say plainly that they are tired of surveys and ready for a decision. They're right. This is the most important piece of property the village owns, sitting empty in the heart of downtown, and how Winnetka fills it will shape the community's future as much as any choice the Council makes this decade.

The freshly seeded lawn is a placeholder. The point of this month's engagement is to give the Council the clear signal it needs to commit to a direction and execute. This time, it's not the Council's job — it's residents who have to step up and guide the Village. The concepts the Council eventually weighs are being shaped right now by the feedback gathered this month. After this round, Teska will analyze the results, identify the top one or two concepts, and bring them to the Council.

A decision this large deserves the whole village's voice — Winnetka's future on this corner is now.

Please see the box at the top of this page for tonight's open house and the online option — and please invest time to voice your opinion.