Politics & Government

Plans Will 'Transform' Forest Preserve Land

The Cook County Forest Preserve District is planning major renovations to the Oak Forest Heritage Preserve, located adjacent to the Oak Forest Medical Center. Work will begin in the fall of 2012.

The 170-plus acres of forest preserve land adjacent to the are about to get a facelift thanks to the Cook County Forest Preserve District. The forest preserve district unveiled its Oak Forest Heritage Preserve Master Plan Aug. 14.

Plans include: 

  • a visitors' center
  • walking and bike paths
  • preservation of historic cemetery grounds
  • landscape restoration

“The Oak Forest Heritage Preserve is a unique public space, unlike any other in the County,” said Forest Preserve District of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, in a press release. “The ideas proposed in the Master Plan will celebrate the rich historic, cultural and ecological significance of the site, while providing our residents with opportunities to understand and enjoy it.”

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Once settled by Native Americans, the preserve's historical and vegetative significance is one of the main reasons the Forest Preserve District is concerned with rejuvenating the area.

The land was once used as the Cook County Work Farm/Oak Forest Infirmary, a poor farm and home for the county’s indigenous population. Later, it also served as a tuberculosis treatment center and burial site for the county’s indigent from 1911 to 1971. 

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The vegetation native to the preserve is classified in six types, with some plants potentially dating back to original land surveys in 1822.

The project aims to transform the grounds from an "inaccessible, environmentally disturbed site with a hidden past, into a preserve that is beautiful, culturally and biologically rich, accessible, and educational.”

Beginning this fall, the forest preserve district, which worked in conjunction with the Cook County Real Estate Management Division and the Cook County Health and Hospitals System on the project, will start work on the site, beginning with new signage at the entrance of the health center, along with the extension of trails to the Fieldcrest Subdivision and a small parking lot.

Phase One would run through 2013, broken into three parts and costing between $2.5 and $3.8 million dollars. All funds for the first phase of the project would come from FPDCC capital funds. 

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