City Closer to Sale of 'The Church Parcel'

It's taken a long time to get rolling, but the t finally looks to have a buyer for the city-owned land at 5340 W. 159th Street—also known as “the church parcel.” After nearly a year of negotiations with Net3 Real Estate, LLC., the two sides arrived at a $270,000 deal—but the sale must still be approved by both sides' legal teams, and the state.

“This particular project is up for state review in June,” said Oak Forest Community Development Director Adam Dotson. “This is only part of the process, this is just the contract to purchase.”

The sale was approved by the city council meeting at its April 10, meeting.

Net3 Real Estate is expected to develop the land into a medical facility, while leaving the frontage portion of the land along 159th street open to commercial development, Dotson said.

While it would have been preferential to break ground on the project this month, it just wasn't in the cards, Dotson said.

“I would not foresee for 90 to 120 days, before we would see any ground broken at this particular location,” Dotson said. “With that, this gives them the green-light to move forward and actually go through the process itself.”