By Jeff Vorva
Crossroads did not hit a roadblock.
Despite not wanting to bring more apartments to the village, the Orland Park Village Board approved plans for the Crossroads of Orland Park at its May 6 Committee of the whole and regular meetings and it will indeed feature 132 apartments.
The Crossroads project, located on LaGrange Road, 159th Street and 94th Street, is expected to have three five-story buildings with 44 units per building along with three restaurants and a hotel on a 16-acre area.
The board voted 5-0 for the plans with trustees Brian Riordan and Sean Kampas absent.
The board hashed out the apartment issue during its discussion before the vote.
“Our direction and goals are to be homeowner-occupied and here we are talking about apartments and that raises a concern to me because they are five-story buildings,” Trustee Michael Milani said. “They are nice looking buildings, don’t get me wrong, but do we want five-story buildings?
“If there is a way we can rectify that…but I doubt that’s in our cards here.”
Trustees wanted clarification that his project would not be another project similar to 9750 apartments that the current board feels is a financial disaster.
“You’ve heard me say it a bazillion times — we’re not a big fan of apartments,” Mayor Keith Pekau said. “We get requests, and we turn them away. We don’t ever pass the word ‘go,’ because we say ‘no’ all the time.
“I mean, if we wanted to fill up Orland Park with apartments, we could have done so already.”
But he is reluctantly willing to let it happen because of the logistics of the property.
“This is a tough site and is there anybody here that would ever buy a single-family home in there?” Pekau said. “No, you would not be able to do that.
“It’s kind of one of those places as we’ve talked about. At least in my opinion, there’s a few places that you can do apartments in in town that they actually make sense because nothing else has ever really going to go there.”
Carrie Haberstich, the village’s assistant director of development, said that aside from the apartments, there will be a 107-room hotel, three restaurants – two with drive throughs, a dog park, a walking path, a scenic overlook and native vegetation restoration.
Just another project similar to 171st of LaGrange. There wasn’t and still isn’t a legitimate reason to let this project move forward. For a Mayor like Pekau to always to negative about apartment projects he sure does approve them.
Tell us where all these apartments have been built?
171st & 94th Ave.
Oh, more section 8. Orlands an up and coming Matteson.
That is scary!!! That’s horrible for the area and sorry but it just brings in CRIME.
Apartments does not keep areas nice I think there are section 8 apartments not far from. There and they don’t look great. Why does everyone always feel the need to take over all the land??
Terrible job on the trustees to approve this. That intersection at 159th and 94th ave is the most dangerous in the village in terms of accidents and now things are going to get even worse with higher traffic. LaGrange road on a Saturday is like Lake Shore Drive. And look at that abomination of housing that was just built on 94th ave and 171st street. Already shootings in that area. Orland Park doesn’t need any more housing.. especially apartment housing. How about putting some effort into a nice downtown area like Lemont and Tinley Park.
Can’t agree more..
Exactly. Try putting in a nice downtown area. More apartments are NOT necessary. Apartments = more crime
Living on the Orland Hills side, 94th Ave is already way to busy and only one lane each way.
Putting in condos or Tiny Houses would be better for all. More taxes collected and more residential pride, building 5 stories collect no more taxes than single stories. There are already lots of hotels here and never look close to full.
Would love to see them condos, that way they have an investment in the village. Then no section 8 housing like on 171st and 143
Beware of 15 minute city planning, where people are stacked on top of each other and can’t own anything and will be happy.
Are you kidding me? A hotel was just built nearby. And the traffic at those intersections with 159th is a nightmare: accidents happen often despite the red light camera. So I ask: who beside the developer is making money off this?
The community has an expectation that it’s representatives will Represent the the interests and values of this community, Orland Park, by making responsible decisions that sustain, protect and value its citizens, homes and investments. As exemplified by the negative impacts of 171st development, experience and common sense indicate this apartment project will bring higher crime, traffic congestion and place a target on Orland Park by developers to suck the peace in our community and value from our homes. Trustees failed our community.. Big Hard Fail!
Any board member or mayor that approved this should resign. I don’t want the conservative voting base here to be degraded.
This will just bring low life’s on welfare and illegals to the area Orland has already becoming a shit hole just look at what’s shopping in our area