Orland Park trustees are moving forward on a road expansion project that’s been discussed for more than a decade, and it’s Amazon that’s making it possible.
The village board voted Monday to pursue a Tax Increment Financing district for the Ravinia Avenue extension, a $12 million infrastructure project designed to ease traffic congestion at one of the area’s most clogged intersections. The financing mechanism would allow the village to recover its costs if the TIF is eventually established, using tax revenue generated by Amazon’s new $70 million retail development.
The Ravinia extension has been on the village’s wish list since at least 2015, but without a dedicated funding source, it never moved beyond the planning stage. The arrival of Amazon — which agreed not to ask for direct village incentives — changed the equation. Now the village has a revenue stream to pay for infrastructure improvements that will benefit the entire area, from residents to businesses like Costco.
The intersection of 159th Street and LaGrange Avenue has been a traffic nightmare for years. Ravinia curves and then stops, forcing drivers to funnel through a congested intersection that backs up during peak hours. The extension would create an alternate route, allowing traffic to bypass the bottleneck.
“We’ve known about the problems in that area for at least a decade,” said George Koczwara, the village manager, during Monday’s board meeting. “Because of the Amazon project, we now have the way to pay for those improvements. We just did not have that previously.”
Here’s how the financing works: The village is declaring its intent to establish a TIF district. If the TIF is eventually created, the village can recover costs it’s already spent on engineering and land acquisition — and any future costs related to the project. The TIF would capture the increase in property tax revenue generated by the Amazon development, using that money to pay off bonds issued to fund the road work.
The core infrastructure improvements total $8.6 million and include the Ravinia extension itself, a traffic light at 161st Street, dual left turn lanes from LaGrange onto the Ravinia extension, and median closure and extension of dual left turn lanes at 159th.
The village is also considering burying power lines along 159th Street from LaGrange past Costco — a $3 million addition that’s still under review.
The village has already spent $320,000 on the Ravinia extension. Those costs won’t be part of the reimbursement resolution; only expenses from this point forward would be eligible.
Amazon is donating the land needed for the road along its property, a significant contribution that reduces the village’s right-of-way acquisition costs. The company could theoretically access its property without the full extension — but village officials negotiated for the complete project as a condition of the development.
“They could just have a piece off of LaGrange just for their property,” Koczwara said. “But we’ve had discussions with them saying that we need to get Ravinia extended, and this is how we’re going to do it.”
The board approved the TIF reimbursement resolution 6-1, with Trustee Cynthia Nelson Katsenes voting “no.” Her concerns centered on whether the village should be pursuing this financing mechanism at all, given that Amazon said it didn’t want village incentives.
The resolution is the first step in a longer process. The village still needs to commission a feasibility study — likely from SB Freedman, the firm that conducted the analysis for the previous TIF proposal — to determine whether the project actually qualifies for TIF financing under state law.
The Ravinia extension is part of a larger conversation the village is having about how to fund infrastructure and manage debt. Mayor James Dodge signaled Monday that the board will hold a special meeting to discuss the village’s overall economic development strategy, including how TIFs, tax incentives, and other financing tools affect schools and other taxing bodies.
“This is a policy decision,” the mayor said. “One option is through a TIF. Another option is new sales tax that’s being generated. It could be a hybrid. That’s still to be decided.”
For now, the village is moving forward with the TIF path — but with the understanding that other options remain on the table.
Village Engineer Aladdin Husain said the project is expected to go out for bids in the coming weeks, with construction anticipated to begin in May 2026 and completion by year’s end.