Burr Ridge Village Hall Going On Market

BURR RIDGE, IL – Burr Ridge trustees on Monday voted to put the Village Hall property on the market. But one dissented, saying he was "caught off guard."

The village is not setting a specific price. However, its floor is $2.25 million, above the $1.8 million appraised amount, officials said.

"We're confident we're going to get some serious bidders at that price," Mayor Gary Grasso said at Monday's Village Board meeting. "Tonight is just getting the train to move, and once it's moving, we can stop it, of course, or we can take it to the finish line."

Trustee Russell Smith used the train analogy to express his opposition.

"When I received the (agenda) packet, this kind of caught me off guard," he said. "I feel as a trustee that if I vote for approval of this, this tells the public that I'm in favor of moving the train down the line."

On Monday afternoon, Smith said he quickly polled 10 residents by phone. Nine opposed building a new Village Hall, with the remaining person undecided, he said.

"I think we need to get more public comment before we start moving the train too far down the line," Smith said.

Trustee Joe Snyder replied that he polled "my group of individuals" and that they were all for a new Village Hall.

For his part, Trustee Tony Schiappa said he spoke to a "ton of my friends," and their initial reaction was against building anew. But when he told them more about the issue, they understood and favored a new building, Schiappa said.

Grasso said the agenda item was not a surprise.

"Of course, I would think some residents would not want to spend money on a new building, but they don't work here and they don't really know the facts," the mayor said. "If they do know the facts, I think they'll side with us. I'm all for opening up forums, so everybody gets the facts."

Trustee Anita Mital said the village staff has researched the issue and shown that renovating the current building would cost too much. Meanwhile, Trustee Al Paveza said he didn't want the debt-free Burr Ridge to take on any debt for the project.

Officials said the project can be done without any debt.

The village's current plan is to move out of the 41-year-old Village Hall building and construct an addition to the neighboring police station to house village offices.

The estimated price tag for the addition is $5.8 million, with the "development" timeline expected to last 15 months.

Officials said they expected the old building to become medical offices.