Key Roosevelt Road site likely to remain military reserve facility
The Armed Forces Reserve Center building on Roosevelt Road will likely see a new military tenant this year in the Illinois National Guard.
The Illinois National Guard is confident that the Army Corp of Engineers, which owns the property at 7402 Roosevelt Road, will process its request and license the land to the Illinois National Guard indefinitely.
“We don’t anticipate any problems,” Rich Munyer, director of the construction and facility management office for the Illinois Army National Guard, told the Review.
The property transfer would put on ice hopes that Forest Park’s village government has long harbored of taking ownership of the six-acre parcel for its own use, or for commercial or residential development.
If approved, the Illinois National Guard would station its drilling units at the old Armed Forces Reserve Center. All the Illinois National Guard’s units are drilling units, which train to deploy to national emergencies or war. The Illinois National Guard has over 100 units, each made up of about 150 people, which move around to different home bases throughout the state. A few of these units could be stationed on the six-acre property on Roosevelt Road, housing 400 to 600 people.
The move comes years after the village of Forest Park expressed interest in the Roosevelt Road property – first when the Navy moved out of the area nearly two decades ago, and again in 2022 when the Army left. A large plot of land on a main thoroughfare is a hot commodity, since it’s close to downtown Chicago and has several nearby transit options.
“We’ve been looking for property in that area for quite some time, so when it popped up, we jumped on it. It’s ideal for our purposes” Brad Leighton,public affairs director for the Illinois National Guard, told the Review. “We do very well recruiting in the Forest Park area.”
Last year, the Illinois National Guard enlisted eight people from Forest Park, and has recruited six so far this year. Forest Park has a good number of young people who could join the National Guard.
“The population of that area is pretty youthful,” Leighton said, adding that 53% of the population is ages 15- to 29-years old. “A majority of the population is within our recruiting ages.”
And Forest Park is made up of about 53% females and 47% males, according to Leighton.
“We’re recruiting more and more female soldiers. They’re becoming a greater percentage of our force,” Leighton said. “The diversity of the population is attractive to us as well.”
The Illinois National Guard is hopeful that, if the Army Corp of Engineers approves the transfer of its property in the next few months, it will assume financial responsibility for the upkeep and maintenance of the building. Initially, this would include updating the building’s plumbing and HVAC, plus small repairs to make the building functional. The Illinois National Guard would address larger alterations to the building in the coming years.
If all goes well, National Guard members could move into the building as soon as early next year.
Military on Roosevelt Road
On Roosevelt Road in what is now the Forest Park Plaza Shopping Center, a torpedo plant was built in 1942. The plant manufactured over 9,000 torpedoes and employed over 6,000 workers during WWII. It continued making weapons for the Korean War and Vietnam War.
In the ‘60s, the plant’s torpedo production decreased and it started focusing on research and engineering efforts, according to the Historical Society of Forest Park. When the plant closed in 1970, it had produced nearly 20,000 torpedoes.
At the neighboring 7402 Roosevelt Road, the Navy Reserve Center continued serving as a place to train Naval and Marine Corps reservists who lived in the area.
Because of a Base Realignment and Closure study, a federally approved process that restructured bases to improve efficiency and finances, the Navy geared up to leave Forest Park in 2005 and transfer its reservists to another base.
Around that time, village staff and commissioners started discussing development options for the reserve center – including a new municipal building that could house all village services, or a commercial or retail space.
In 2007, the village formed a Local Reuse Authority, the first year that now-Mayor Rory Hoskins served as village commissioner. Hoskins said one of the group’s early endeavors was to lobby the federal government to get control of 7402 Roosevelt Road. He added that, if the federal and state government didn’t want the property, the local government was likely next in line.
“We thought we’d be a preferred potential recipient,” Hoskins told the Review. “I wanted us to be on the record for having an interest in it, in the event that maybe the [military] would sell it for $1or declare it surplus property. You just don’t know unless you ask.”
The U.S. Army Reserve Command took over the property in 2007. There, they trained and deployed units for Army missions before leaving the building somewhat suddenly in June 2022.
“One of our police officers noticed a bunch of trucks coming out of the facility, a convoy that ended up at Portillo’s,” Hoskins said. When the officer asked what they were doing, they said the Army was clearing out.
Munyer said he was told the Army’s departure from Forest Park was because it had built a new reserve facility in the Chicagoland area.
In June of 2022, the Army Reserve started taking bids for its Real Property Exchange program to offload the Roosevelt Road property. Through the program, a developer or municipality would’ve gotten the 7402 Roosevelt Road property in exchange for financing improvements on another military property.
While the village of Forest Park was discussing whether to bid, Commissioners Maria Maxham and Joe Byrnes voted against it because the village couldn’t finance improvements at a base outside Forest Park and renovations to the Roosevelt Road site. Hoskins and Commissioner Jessica Voogd, on the other hand, said the potential property exchange was a big opportunity for Forest Park that could be funded by Tax Increment Financing, state and federal money. Commissioner Ryan Nero was absent at the village council meeting, and with a tie vote, the motion failed.
About a month after the village council stalemate, the Army Reserve said it wouldn’t allow environmental studies on the property until it was transferred to a new owner. This sealed the deal for Commissioners Byrnes, Maxham and Nero to stop exploring a village takeover of the building, since it would be uncertain how much site remediation would be.
“We weren’t able to determine what the costs of that would’ve been,” Hoskins said. “We didn’t have a plan. It came to us so quickly.”
Hoskins added that the Army may not have found any bidders for the Real Property Exchange program because “it’s an expensive endeavor … it just seemed like it was an incredible bureaucracy.”
Munyer said he doesn’t know what happened to the Real Property Exchange program. He said the Illinois National Guard expressed interest in the Roosevelt Road property after the Army left it in 2022.
“When a Department of Defense-owned property becomes excess, other elements of the federal government can – if they have a need that is justifiable – submit through their command a desire to get that property,” Munyer said.
According to Munyer, the Illinois National Guard’s request for the property was sent to the National Guard Bureau in Washington D.C. and is now with the Army Corp of Engineers, which will decide whether to approve it.
“Hopefully soon, they issue it to us, and it becomes our facility,” Munyer said. “It provides a local opportunity for those young people, not just in Forest Park, but all of the surrounding municipalities.” Benefits of joining the National Guard include 100% free tuition at any state college or university.
“We’re super excited about moving into Forest Park,” Leighton said. “We’re going to put it to use and hopefully spur a little business in that community as well.”
The Illinois National Guard coming to town would be “a good thing for the village,” Hoskins agreed. “I see lots of future development opportunities along Roosevelt Road, and that’s why I thought it might be fit for the village at some point to gain control of the property if we could.”
“But the state is a great partner,” Hoskins said. “We have a good relationship with the state.”
