What Glenview residents want: Plazas, mixed-use, shorter buildings

The third meeting of the Glenview Connect project, an "open house," had been billed as a way for more public involvement in the plan to determine Glenview's future development.

Between 75 and 90 people, according to announcements during the Dec. 17 remote assembly, took the organizers and the Glenview Village board up on it.

"The idea tonight is we're really moving from background, research, visioning and the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, taken up at the last meeting Nov. 18) ... (and) we're building on that feedback and moving it toward preliminary plan content," said Angela Acosta, a brand strategist with CallisonRTKL, one of the consultant firms heading Glenview Connect.

"So, with your comments tonight we're going to actually move into strategies and plans for that next meeting."

That next meeting, a second open house, has yet to be scheduled other than for early 2021. The entire project is intended to end in the spring.

In Thursday's meeting, Callison urban designer Erich Dohrer and Bill Cunningham of Ricker Cunningham, a firm of real estate economists and community strategists also in on Glenview Connect, first led an examination of the good, the bad and the tweakable in five Glenview study areas.

It's been noted, there really is no "bad" in a village that trustees, residents and consultants believe satisfies in many ways.

It's more "filling in gaps in the market," as CallisonRTKL's Katie Sprague said.

Public participants were encouraged to make suggestions for future brainstorming as Dohrer and Cunningham assessed the downtown business district, The Glen and the Waukegan Road, Willow Road and Milwaukee Avenue corridors.

"As Erich and his team are conducting their physical analysis, we're really looking at each of these areas from a market and economic standpoint and perspective," Cunningham said.

Both saw the capacity for smaller retail and restaurant tenants in the downtown district - framed by challenging rents - and in what would be a recurring theme, mixed-use spaces.

The Glen was summarized as "pretty great."

"Lifestyle centers like that have continued to be successful even as regional malls and regional shopping centers are failing at an alarming rate," Cunningham said, "so the configuration of The Glen is a good thing going into the future. It's a sustainable model for retail and mixed use."

Still, when the consultants came to vast parking lots, big-box retailers or even the Allstate campus off Willow and Sanders roads, they broached a "what-if" scenario - a tenant leaving provides opportunity for different land uses, parking configurations or office types.

"It's all about kind of keeping those land uses and tenant types balanced in a way that protects the village budget," Cunningham said.

That was essentially the same message concerning the business corridors, where perhaps zoning changes could allow smaller business, industrial and higher-density residential uses.

Cunningham even suggested ethnic retail on Milwaukee Avenue could "be bolstered into a tourist attraction."

Halfway through the 2-hour, 39-minute meeting, the presentation gave way to a "visual preference survey" in which people voted on various development components.

Findings included the preference of plazas for public spaces both in the business corridors and districts; favoring lighting and public art in streetscapes; and an "urban" look to storefront retail.

In downtown and The Glen, voters liked outdoor dining as a way to separate buildings from the street. In the corridors they liked a landscaped setback.

Voters favored mixed use for offices, residential and retail developments. They preferred shorter buildings - 3-story for residential, 1- to 2-story commercial.

"We'll be able to take that information, we're going to start to analyze that and start to hone that into more specific recommendations that we'll be starting the conversation with as we move forward," Dohrer said.

Acosta said public members contributed 221 comments during the meeting.

A few more residents phoned in before meeting's end, like Vanessa Podgorski: "No one has brought up the economic feasibility of all of this," she said.

Glenview trustee Deborah Karton responded.

"The goal is to try and figure out how to reconcile what residents want with what is realistic. So I know our consultants will have their hands full," she said.