Work planned for Winnetka’s Nielsen center, parking lot
By Kimberly Fornek kfornek@pioneerlocal.com January 31, 2012 7:44PM
Village review of the first phase of the Winnetka Park District's redevelopment of the Skokie Playfield has begun. The first phase includes an addition on the A.C. Nielsen Tennis Center, redesigning the parking lot and renovating the golf service center. | Kimberly Fornek~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 3, 2012 11:28AM
The Winnetka Park District’s first step in getting village approval for its redevelopment of the Skokie Playfield went smoothly last week. The village Plan Commission recommended the park district should get the special permit it needs for the first phase of improvements to the parkland at Hibbard Road and Elm Street.
The first phase includes expanding the A. C. Nielsen Tennis Center, redesigning the parking lot and traffic flow in front of the tennis center, and renovating the golf service center north of the parking lot.
The park district wants to put an 1,800-square-foot addition on the tennis center, which would enlarge the lobby and create an area for players to congregate and socialize. The washrooms and lockers rooms also would be remodeled to meet Americans with Disabilities accessibility standards.
Improvements to the parking lot are intended to improve accessibility and congregating in a different way.
Depending on the time of day and the season, golfers, tennis and paddle tennis players, ball players and spectators heading to the baseball diamonds, people dropping children off for activities at the Washburne School gymnasium across the street, and school district and park district employees all may be looking for spaces in the long, narrow parking lot.
Winnetka Public Works Director Steve Saunders used the not-so-technical term, “higgly-piggly” to describe the traffic flow. “All you have to do is go out at 2:45 p.m. on a weekday and sit there with a cup of coffee” to recognize the traffic problems, he told the Plan Commission at its Jan. 25 meeting.
Plan Commissioner Joni Johnson agreed.
It’s so challenging to navigate that lot, anything would be a vast, vast improvement,” she said.
To make it easier for drivers to drop people off, two areas, one in front of the tennis center and one at the far north end of the parking near the baseball diamonds, will be designed specifically for drop-offs.
The new design at the north end will have cars turning right after entering at Hibbard and Elm and moving counter-clockwise through an oval that will be marked for two lanes. A car stopped in the oval waiting to pick up or drop someone off will not block another car from passing.
Currently, if a vehicle stops at the northern end, “everyone behind him has to wait,” said Don Matthews, the project engineer.
The entrances into and out of the parking lot also will be expanded. There will be two outbound lanes, instead of one, onto Hibbard at both Elm and Oak streets. Drivers wanting to go south on Hibbard can make a right turn without getting stuck behind cars waiting to make a left turn to go north.
Redesigning the tennis center parking lot will only net two additional spaces, but the changes planned at the service center will make 17 more spaces available to the public during evenings and weekends.
The park district also hopes to pour a 10-foot wide concrete sidewalk on the west side of Hibbard between Pine and Oak streets. Eventually, the sidewalk will be extended south to Willow Road.
Park district officials will go before the village’s Zoning Board of Appeals and Design Review Board with their phase one improvements later this month.
They hope to start work on the parking lot in July and have the tennis center addition substantially completed by next January.
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