One Tinley Park Releases Vision For Mental Health Center Site

TINLEY PARK, IL — One Tinley Park released the party's vision for redeveloping the former mental health center site that focuses on veteran housing and commercial retail — a contrast with the village's current proposal that relies primarily on senior housing and recreational space.

In an email to Patch, candidate William Brennan said that the slate was "steadfast" in ensuring that the state remediates the environmental contaminates on the land and bears the full cost of the clean-up.

The candidates also favor a plan that looks like a concept plan commission Chairman Ken Shaw developed in 2016. According to Brennan, Shaw developed it as private citizen and not within his capacity as a planning official.

Ideally, Brennan said, the candidates would prefer to work with a master planner to design a similar project using Shaw's concepts. In it, they would like to emphasize veteran housing with tiny homes or cottages, and to begin start discussions with Top Golf and other commercial retailers "to create an economic engine that is sustainable for our town," he said.

"The One Tinley Park candidates find many of the plan's concepts and ideas interesting and support this type of approach over the official proposals, which differ from each other only by the volume and types of housing, but they ALL involve using the majority of the land for housing. We do not support that approach," he wrote.

Shaw's conceptual plan

The village's plan

The village is negotiating with Melody Square LLC to build a sweeping, largely age-restricted community to redevelop the former Tinley Park Mental Health Center. Under the proposal, Melody Square would build 435 single-family homes targeted for buyers ages 55 and older, as well as about 200 luxury senior apartments on the 280-acre site. Another 100 apartments, 60 single-family homes, and recreation and public green space is planned for the site.

The negotiation lasts for six months and is nonbinding.

The development team is made up of Chicago-area partners K. Hovnanian, M/I Homes, Jax Yards, Rick Heidner of Heidner Properties and Dave Dorgan. Dorgan is a former Tinley Park village manager.

Village officials began looking at options to redevelop the former mental health center's site in 2017, five years after former Gov. Pat Quinn shut down the state facility near Harlem Avenue and 183rd Street.

They had planned to purchase the land from the state in 2015 for more than $4 million. According to the Tribune, the plan was set aside and officials have said that they are waiting for a new property appraisal.

In 2014, an environmental evaluation report showed that the area contained contaminated soil and leaking underground storage tanks filled with gasoline and chemical drums. The area would need remediation, the report showed. Estimates put the cost of clean up at about $12 million.