‘Utter Dissatisfaction’: Westfield Old Orchard called out for parking deal with Niles North

Standing before the Skokie Village Board on Oct. 20, Amber Wood called on the trustees to consider some of Westfield Old Orchard’s recent “bad choices” in the event the company seeks any future relief or “corporate welfare” from the village. 

Those choices reportedly included the mall charging Niles Township High School District 219 $75,000 for parking spaces this school year and scheduling the band Smash Mouth to perform at Old Orchard Mall on the same weekend as the village’s annual Backlot Bash street festival. 

Wood, who is the president of D219’s Board of Education, told trustees she was speaking solely in her capacity as an 18-year Skokie resident. 

“Westfield Old Orchard mall are terrible neighbors and I am shocked, no, appalled about the way they’re treating our school district and our teenagers,” Wood said, alleging the mall has ticketed Niles North High School teachers and towed students’ cars who parked in the mall’s lot.

Wood’s comments were in part spurred by D219’s need for additional parking at Niles North High School as the Illinois Department of Transportation stages materials in Niles North’s parking lot for its years-long construction work on Old Orchard Road. 

In a statement, Lauren Kelly Koch, a director at Westfield Old Orchard’s public relations firm, says that Westfield “historically accommodated parking for Niles North students and staff and has worked with District 219 over the past year to establish a formal arrangement.”

Westfield “offered the district dedicated parking at Old Orchard on multiple occasions at the same rate students pay for an on-campus permit, while continuing to accommodate additional parking on specific days when needed,” according to the company’s statement. 

Takumi Iseda, D219’s director of communications, said via email that the district met with Westfield’s management in the summer and has an “agreement” in place in which D219 pays Westfield $300 per spot for 250 of the mall’s parking spaces this school year. 

Westfield said it has “a responsibility to maintain sufficient parking for our guests and retailers,” but it “values its longstanding relationship with Niles North, District 219 and the Skokie community” and “recognizes how important parking is, particularly during the Old Orchard Road construction.”

Iseda said D219 will “reevaluate the parking capacities” once the Old Orchard Road construction is complete, and “Niles North students and staff are aware of the parking lot designations as well as parking restrictions on campus and at Westfield.”

Yet the minutes from a Sept. 29 D219 Finance Committee meeting reflect Wood’s “utter dissatisfaction that a corporation would take action against students and staff for profit.” 

‘That Generosity of Spirit Will Not Continue’

Meaghan Johnson, a spokesperson for the Cook County Bureau of Administration, said in an email that the IDOT entered into a “right of entry” agreement with D219 in May 2024 for a “defined area” of Niles North High School’s parking lot.

The county and its contractor, F.H. Paschen, “mainly utilize the parking area for equipment staging in support of the Old Orchard Road construction,” Johnson said. 

Niles North High School and Old Orchard Mall are both located along a one-mile stretch of Old Orchard Road the county has spent the past two years renovating. The construction is at least one year behind schedule and anticipated to finish in the summer 2027, The Record reported.

On Monday, Oct. 27, pallets of wood, piles of gravel, idle tractors, concrete tubes and other construction materials were stationed in a cordoned-off portion of Niles North High School’s parking lot. 

According to Wood, Niles North students and staff could park in an adjacent Old Orchard mall lot at no cost to D219 until this summer, when Westfield management indicated it wanted to charge the district the rate D219 charges its own students for parking. 

Eligible Niles North students may purchase a permit to park on the school’s campus only for $300 per school year, but D219 staff do not pay for parking permits on campus or in Westfield’s authorized spots, Iseda said. 

D219 administrators met with Westfield management over the summer to discuss a parking agreement, and the district’s finance committee reviewed it in August and September, Iseda said. It does not appear the D219 board formally voted on the agreement.

Minutes from the September D219 Finance Committee meeting show Jim Vreeland, the district’s assistant superintendent of business, stated the issue is that Niles North is “landlocked” — staff park in the spaces the district pays Westfield for, but “the goal is to move all staff to the Niles North lot” once the IDOT leaves the high school. 

According to the meeting minutes, students who park in the Old Orchard parking lot will be towed; Superintendent Tom Moore said that he and Vreeland met with the manager of Westfield and that “generosity of spirit will not continue with them in the future.”

‘Ready and Willing to Work Together’

In her comments before the Skokie Village Board, Wood described the Old Orchard Road construction as “seemingly endless” and said she hoped Westfield management would have participated in “further conversation allowing District 219 to plan” its parking arrangement. 

She added that the Westfield “parking lot in question is frequently empty” and the funds Westfield is “demanding are taxpayer money and funds intended to support our students’ education.”

Westfield scheduling Smash Mouth to perform at the mall the same weekend as the village’s main street festival was “insult to injury,” Wood said, and she argued the village should consider how the company has been a “disappointing neighbor” if Westfield seeks allowances from the board.

“Was this just a general unwillingness to acknowledge the daily proximity to others who have chosen to support them in their businesses?” Wood asked. “I’d like to respectfully request that this board intervene and ask Westfield Mall to remember that while they may work here, we live here and our kids go to school here.”

The Skokie Village Board voted in 2022 to establish the Old Orchard Business District and add a 1% sales tax to purchases at the mall; funds raised from that tax may go toward reimbursing Westfield for eligible redevelopment costs at the Old Orchard site, a village website shows. 

The Skokie Village Board voted in 2024 to approve plans for two mostly vacant seven-story office buildings located near the mall, at 5202 and 5250 Old Orchard, to be developed into a 245 apartment complex, but the project does not appear to be owned by Westfield Old Orchard. 

The Belgravia Group, a Chicago-based developer, and the property owner, listed as 5250 Old Orchard Road, obtained approval from a split Skokie Village Board in January to provide the village $1 million in lieu of including six affordable housing units in the project. 

In Westfield’s Old Orchard’s statement to The Record, the company said it remains “ready and willing to work together on a solution that supports the school community.”

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