New Tinley Park Forest Preserve Welcomes Visitors

TINLEY PARK, IL — The Forest Preserves of Cook County has opened its newest site to the public at 6101 Oak Forest Avenue. Adding 29 acres of land that was formerly known as Villa Santa Maria creates a nearly 300-acre property that gives visitors the chance to park onsite to enjoy a picnic or connect with nature.

"In addition to showcasing the history of the Tinley Park area, this property is another
example of how we can reconsider open space for public use," said Interim General
Superintendent Eileen Figel. "We’re so excited for families and nature enthusiasts to enjoy
our latest addition whether they are going for a walk, laying out a picnic blanket or playing catch."

The preserve offers a half-mile loop grass walking path where visitors can take in the beauty
of a canopy of mature white oaks and hickories and an open grass area perfect for flying a
kite. With the installation of uncovered picnic tables, the preserve is available to book with
a permit for small gatherings of up to 50 people.

Made up of woodland, grassland, wetland and a tributary stream that feeds into the Midlothian Creek, 6101 Oak Forest Avenue provides important habitats for woodland birds such as bluejays and red-bellied woodpeckers and cavity dwelling species such as wood ducks, nuthatches, chickadees, flying squirrels and tree frogs. The former agricultural fields contain mostly non-native grasses, but there is potential for future restoration to a prairie-like plant community.

Villa Santa Maria was owned by the Mantellate Sisters, a community of Catholic nuns, who bought it in 1955 for the novitiate, a period of training and preparation before taking vows. The Sisters also built a preschool and kindergarten on the land before moving out and selling the property in 2018 to the Forest Preserves, which acquired the 29.3 acres using Land and Water Conservation funding from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

To restore the land to its natural state, the Forest Preserves demolished the buildings after documenting the history in a report to the state. Prior to the nunnery, the land was a part of Cooper’s Grove, a prominent landmark in the county named after an early European settler, and the area was inhabited by Indigenous people for about 10,000 years before colonization. Archaeological discoveries on Forest Preserves land in southern Cook County include decorated ceramic pottery, bone and shell tools and ornaments and below ground storage pits, hearths and house floors.

Adding the Villa Santa Maria property to the Forest Preserves not only provided a parking lot and space for picnics, essentially creating a visitor-accessible preserve at 6101 Oak Forest Avenue. It grew the contiguous natural area to the south that was already owned by the Forest Preserves. Larger protected natural areas limit the “edge effect”—the phenomenon in which many plants and animals cannot or will not use a natural area because it is too close to a road, human development, human-generated noise or a change in the natural community. Adding natural land abutting existing preserves is a primary goal for land acquisition by the Forest Preserves.

This new preserve also gives the Forest Preserves an opportunity to extend its Tinley Park Trail system, which extends to Central Avenue, just across the street from 6101 Oak Forest Avenue. The Vollmer Road Grove Loop trail is three miles to the southeast, which could be looked at as a future connection.

A feasibility study for the possible extension of the Tinley Creek Trail to the south of I-80 would be needed and would not begin until 2025 at the earliest.