The Village of Oak Park | 123 Madison St.  Oak Park, IL 60302 | village@oak-park.us

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Parking options keep expanding downtown

With a new public garage now open, convenient valet service available and time limits to be set in three surface lots to encourage turnover, shoppers are finding a range of new parking options in downtown Oak Park.

New public garage…The new state-of-the-art garage at Lake Street and Forest Avenue offers 300 public spaces at the same hourly rates as the Holley Court Garage near Lake and Marion streets and the Avenue Garage on North Boulevard just east of Oak Park Avenue. The new garage, which is part of the $99-million Vantage Oak Park private development, replaced one of the Village’s first stand-alone public parking structures that had dominated the site from about 1974 until it was demolished in October 2014. Some 18,000 cubic yards of concrete, 50 tons of structural steel and 36,500 masonry blocks later, the new garage opened for public parking with the entrance on Forest Avenue about a half block north of Lake Street. The garage also includes another 288 parking spaces for residents and businesses in the development that, once completed and fully occupied, is projected to generate an estimated $1.3 million in new property and sales taxes each year from 270 rental apartments and about 25,000 square feet of commercial space.

Valet Oak Park debuts…The new Valet Oak Park parking service is now operating in downtown Oak Park from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday. The service offers two drop-off and pick-up points — one on Lake Street, just west of Marion Street, and one on Marion Street by North Boulevard — just look for the London-style red telephone booth valet stands. Vehicles can be dropped off at either site, and then picked up at the closest valet stand. The new service is $5 for up to three hours and $12 for more than three hours until close. More information on parking in Oak Park is posted at www.oak-park.us.parking.

Lot time limits…To encourage turnover and enhance convenience, parking will be limited to three hours in the surface lots on Marion Street just south of Lake Street (Lot 3), on North Boulevard (Lot 10) and near the Marion Street entrance to the Holley Court Garage (Lot 118), just north of Lake Street. The change came at the request of area business owners who asked the Village to set new rules that would discourage all-day parking in these important retail and dining areas, and offer shoppers another convenient, nearby option.