Park District's $670,000 Property Acquisition To Expand The Grove

GLENVIEW, IL — The Glenview Park District announced it paid $670,000 last month for a nearly 3-acre lot adjacent to The Grove with the help of a nonprofit and federal grant money. Administrators of historical site and nature preserve said they intend to build an access trail to the back side of the landmark with the newly purchased parcel at 1500 Portage Run.

“As part of the original Kennicott Grove, this particular property is important for ecology, cultural history and for our operations,"said Director Lorin Ottlinger. "It will give the park district easier access to that area of The Grove and provide the opportunity for new programming. So, we are thrilled to have it."

The new trail will connect to the rear 70 acres of the property and bypass a long wetlands bridge too narrow for most maintenance vehicles to use, according to a release. Staff said it would be a walking trail that will be usable by small vehicles.

The Grove has grown from the original 30 acres purchased by the Glenview Park District in the 1970s. With the help of a grassroots effort by 10 Glenview woman who organized the Save the Grove Committee, the site was designated a national historic landmark in 1976. Since then, The Grove has expanded to more than 150 acres and welcomes over 100,000 visitors annually.

That committee's successor, the Grove Heritage Association, financed the majority of the cost of the Glenview Park District's latest purchase, according to a district spokesperson. The citizen-supported group dedicated to fundraising on behalf of programs and facilities at The Grove provided a donation of $380,000 to acquire the property. Another $10,000 was provided from the district's Open Space Fund, created with $1 million from last year's $17 million bond issue referendum.

The remaining $280,000 came from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a federal grant program funded with revenue collected by the Department of the Interior from offshore oil and gas royalties. The fund is administered locally by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and must be matched by local districts. Earlier this year, it awarded the Glenview Park District $309,200 to buy land to expand The Grove, but the money used for the Portage Run property came from a prior grant, according to park district staff.

The vacant lot at the end of Portage Run, a private road, was last on the market with an asking price of $800,000 back in 2016. According to property records, it was owned by the family of Ruth E. Traub, who died in 2015 at the age of 93.

Read more: Glenview Park District Awarded Over $700,000 In Grants

The property acquisition is the first near The Grove since it bought 1.9 acres at 4111 Kennicott Lane in 2016, according to a park district spokesperson. Property records show the lot sold for $236,500 in August 2016, when the district bought it through foreclosure after an unfinished and long-vacant house on the property was razed.

Emmanuel "Manny" Joseph, of Morton Grove, had spent about a decade trying to complete the house to be able to sell it before the village deemed it a nuisance and approved spending more than $51,000 to destroy it in July 2013. Bordering The Grove's latest acquisition to the southwest, the Joseph house was never connected to the village sewer system and had been blamed for causing neighboring properties to flood.

Park district staff said the parcel has been incorporated in the the Illinois Nature Preserve at The Grove and is currently being restored to a natural area.

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