Skokie project for long-vacant lot — with double the affordable-housing requirement — gains trustee approval

The Skokie Village Board voted unanimously on Monday, Nov. 3, to approve a five-story building that will add residential units and commercial space to a vacant lot near downtown Skokie.

Moment’s Notice Services, a Chicago-based developer, sought the trustee’s approval for the project located on an approximately half-acre of village-owned land at 8201-8209 Skokie Blvd.

According to the development agreement, the building will include 66 residential units with a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts. A 2,100-square-foot commercial space would occupy the ground floor, and the improved site would create 84 total parking spaces.

Six of the residential units will be designated as affordable housing for people with incomes no greater than 60% of the area’s median income and will feature the same size and amenities as the other 60 apartments in accordance with the village’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. 

Trustee Gail Schechter said she was “pleased” the building offers 10% of its residential units as affordable housing — double the 5% minimum that the village’s ordinance requires for a project of its size — and asked why the developer went beyond the usual threshold. 

“I just simply believe in it. It’s that simple,” said Jody Libman, the owner of Moment’s Notice Services. “I love it. My mom struggled growing up and she didn’t have money, so I like to help people if I can.”

Libman told the Skokie Plan Commission in September that the building will also have “high-end” amenities, such as a fitness center.

The upper floors will have a couple of three-bedroom units, 24 total two-bedroom units, six one-bedroom units and one studio unit. 

The development agreement the board approved in December 2024 shows that the village sold the lot to Moment’s Notice Services for $680,000, but the village will also provide Tax Increment Financing funding to reimburse certain eligible and Skokie-approved costs related to the construction.

Construction must begin within six months of Moment’s Notice Services receiving all the required approvals, and the project should be “substantially completed” within 18 months of receiving a building permit, the development agreement shows.

The site near the intersection of Skokie Boulevard and Cleveland Street was previously a Napleton Lincoln-Mercury car dealership before it was sold in the late 1990s, a staff report from the Skokie Plan Commission shows.  

Fazan Development reportedly submitted a proposal for an eight-story mixed-use building in 2007 that would have included 156 residential units across 12,159 square feet. The project never came to fruition.

The village then purchased the lot, along with another still-vacant lot located at the southeast corner of Skokie Boulevard and Cleveland Street, together for $1.7 million in November 2017.

The village acquired the “blighted” parcels with to see them redeveloped for mixed-use purposes and brought back to market, especially with the new Chicago Transity Authority’s Yellow Line train stop now located just a quarter mile away, Rodney Tonelli, the village’s economic vitality manager said.

All of the existing buildings at the site were demolished in 2018. 

The property has sat vacant since then, even after a+c architects submitted a proposal for another development in 2021 that would have created 32 residential units and 5,000 square feet of retail space at the site, the Skokie staff report shows.

The now-approved development has “moderate intensity relative” to the standards of the mixed-use zoning district it resides in and the multifamily housing district located to its east, the staff report says. 

“I think this is terrific news and this is proof that there are socially conscious but still smart business developers out there who are willing to put in the planning that goes into onsite affordable housing, which we all agree the village needs more of,” said Emi Yamauchi, a Skokie resident.

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