Skokie trustees approve $1.8 million for economic vitality, including Main Street upgrades

The Skokie Village Board voted unanimously on Monday to approve several measures aimed at bolstering local businesses and growing the Skokie economy. 

Trustees voted to pay $1.8 million to rejuvenate a reportedly deteriorated portion of Main Street, draft an ordinance that will make it easier to register new businesses and hire a consultant to develop a multi-year “economic vitality strategy.”

Copenhaver Construction will now begin adding new “art elements,” planters, landscaping, “lighting styling,” pedestrian ways, curb extensions and crosswalks to portions of Main Street between Karlov and Crawford avenues, village documents show. 

The contractor reportedly will also regrade the site, add light poles and repair drainage infrastructure. The blocks slated to see improvements are currently home to businesses like Soul Good Coffee, Zelda’s Table, Gelati Biscoti and the Halal Grill & Market. 

The stretch is also where the village hosts the Skokie Farmer’s Market and houses The Storefront, the Village-owned gallery at 4051 Main St. 

Village staff recommended investing in the Main Street Commercial Corridor in part because it “has experienced steady declines in property values, increased vacancies, and overall deterioration and physical obsolescence” over the past several years, a public memo states. 

The businesses in the “important east/west thoroughfare” have “historically been neighborhood serving with a few destination retailers,” the memo says.

The investment also comes after Skokie hired design consultants to create a December 2024 report studying the corridor. Among other things, the planning aimed to create a “unique identity and long-term vision for the corridor,” a village webpage shows. 

Village staff will work with the businesses in the corridor to “prepare a very special target marketing plan” to encourage the community to continue patronizing those shops while the construction is ongoing, Mayor Ann Tennes said. 

Business registration

Those interested in opening a businesses in the corridor may be glad to hear village staff are now working on a new business registration program. Trustees will have to approve the ordinance creating the program, which will be separate from Skokie’s permitting process, at a later date. 

Businesses currently register with the village using a Certificate of Occupancy process, during which as many as five village staff members reportedly must inspect a new business when it opens in an existing commercial space, regardless if the space has had no physical modifications. 

An outside consultant found that “these inspections do not meaningfully advance safety or regulatory objectives; instead, they add administrative steps, increase cross-departmental coordination, and contribute to avoidable delays,” according to a village memo. 

The new ordinance would reserve Certificate of Occupancy inspections for businesses that need new construction and typically send out just one single inspector, “freeing up staff time for other priorities and improving internal efficiency,” village documents say. 

“The Certificate of Occupancy doesn’t scream, ‘I’ve just opened my business’ and it’s confusing for people to understand I can go into the building,” said Joanna Nyden, Skokie’s director of community development. “It’s jargony, it’s confusing. So this helps streamline it.”

Village staff also recommended the ordinance remove the term Certificate of Compliance from Skokie’s code. Village staff apparently use the term to designate a space fit for occupancy, but in the industry, that term is only used for when projects are near completion. 

“The mismatch between code language and common usage creates unnecessary confusion around permitting and final inspection, and sets Skokie apart from the naming conventions used by most other municipalities in the region,” village documents say. 

Vitality plan

In a more comprehensive move, the Village Board voted to pay a private consultancy firm from Indianapolis — TPMA — no more than $90,000 to develop a 5-10 year Economic Strategic Vitality plan for Skokie.

Among other things, the firm will spend the next 6-9 months analyzing Skokie’s demographics, evaluating its commercial corridors, interviewing stakeholders, comparing the village to peer communities and assessing tourism opportunities before establishing a plan of priorities, practical actions and measurable performance metrics, village document state. 

“The Village seeks to position Skokie as a premier inner-ring suburban destination for business, shopping, tourism, arts and culture,” a village memo on the study states. 

Tennes said the last time she can recall the village hiring an outside consultant to create an economic vitality plan was in 2009 after the recession. 

She added it was the next thing she wanted the village to create after approving Skokie’s 2026-2029 Strategic Plan in March, and she wants the economic study in order to find ways to bolster and support small businesses. 

“How can we better support small business, not just in downtown Skokie but in the small retail and industrial retail pockets and industrial areas throughout Skokie that are therefore waiting for renewal?” Tennes asked. “And this plan will help get us on track for that.”

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