Two Village Decisions Are Converging on the Lawn at 512 Chestnut

Tomorrow night, Tuesday, October 13, the Winnetka Village Council holds a special study session from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. According to Our Town Winnetka, that session is where the Council takes up the results of this year's planning work on the former Post Office site. A week later, on October 20, the Council holds its regular meeting. Running alongside the site planning is a second process that has had far less attention downtown: a proposed zoning district that would rezone the same parcel.

Each process will shape what goes on that corner. One asks what the community wants there. The other sets which uses the zoning code would allow on the lot while the Village rewrites its code over the next two years. Anyone who walks the West Elm Street District should follow both.

How a Parking Lot Became a Lawn

The Village has treated 512 Chestnut Street as a redevelopment opportunity for 40 years, The Record North Shore reported in June. Things moved quickly once they started. In October 2025, trustees backed demolishing the aging building and turning the site into a temporary lawn. Two months later the post office moved to 586 Lincoln Avenue, ending a string of lease extensions.

In March the Council approved a contract of about $585,000 with A Lamp Concrete Contractors. It covered removing the building, foundation and pavement, then grading and restoring the site as green space and parking. By early June the building was gone. The Village said the new sod would not be open to the public until late summer, once it had settled. We have not found a public update confirming the lawn has opened.

The lawn is only part of the parcel. The Village's project page says the site keeps providing "much-needed public parking" for the district while planning continues. According to Our Town Winnetka's summary of the concept boards, that parking totals 258 spaces today.

What 1,200 Survey Responses and Two Open Houses Produced

The Village hired Teska Associates to run the visioning process. More than 1,200 people completed the first online survey, and about 200 came to the open houses at Village Hall on June 9 and June 15. Jodie Mariano of Teska told The Record that the first session's turnout was "very good" compared with other open houses. She said the posters drawing the most interaction showed mixed-use proposals, including a one-and-a-half-story restaurant and a four-story mixed-use building. The residents The Record interviewed that evening wanted more green space.

The first survey showed the same split. In a July 22 analysis, Our Town Winnetka counted about 1,257 responses. A public gathering space ranked first among overall priorities and additional commercial uses ranked second. On housing, 570 respondents put "no residential" first, compared with 408 who put mixed use first. Restaurants, retail and coffee shops topped the list of commercial uses people wanted.

So the survey favored gathering space and dining, and a plurality opposed housing. Those preferences pull against each other, and the six concepts are Teska's attempt to resolve them.

The Six Concepts, Side by Side

Survey #2 asked people to react to six preliminary concepts. It closed July 31. The figures below come from Our Town Winnetka's reading of the Village and Teska concept boards. "Net" parking subtracts the spaces a new development would use itself, so it is the closer measure of what stays available to the public.

Concept 1 keeps about 19,300 square feet of open space. Most of the others come in near 25,600 square feet, and the largest option reaches roughly 90,000. Our Town Winnetka's analysis says Concept 3 is the only board with a labeled price, about $25 million to build and $500,000 a year to maintain, with essentially no developer contribution. In Concepts 5 and 6, the ground floors would hold about 8,500 square feet of leasable retail or restaurant space. The publication says the dollar and "developer interest" readings are conceptual estimates, not bids or budgets.

Budget pressure sits behind every row of that table. Our Town Winnetka notes that the Village's 2026 capital plan is close to $39.5 million for roads, water mains, stormwater and other work. It also reports that at the October 2025 study session, President Dearborn said cost could not be ignored given those other needs. Whether to allow private development on the site to help pay for the public space drives most of the cost differences between the concepts.

The Village says the planning team will report to the Council "later this fall." We have not found Survey #2 response totals or rankings on the project page or in local coverage.

The Zoning Proposal That Lists the Same Parcel

The second process began separately. In its 2023 Winnetka Futures 2040 comprehensive plan, the Village committed to studying a dedicated zoning district for open space uses. At an April 14, 2026 study session, the Council considered three approaches: a new zoning district, expanding the Lakefront Preservation Overlay District, or negotiating agreements with the Park District and other owners. It chose the new district. On July 21 it directed staff to move ahead with what the Village calls Phase 1.

The result is the proposed Open Space Institutional District, set out in a September 17 staff memo. Its property list includes every park and beach, the Skokie Lagoons, the District 36 schools, New Trier's Winnetka campus, the Winnetka Public Library, stormwater basins and the Willow Road water pump station. The last two rows are downtown parcels currently zoned C-2 commercial: "Chestnut Court - Moffatt Mall" and "Former Post Office, 512 Chestnut Street."

The memo lists what the district would allow:

1. Permitted by right: Essential Public Uses, which the zoning code defines as Village-owned property used to provide an essential public service.
2. Special uses, approved case by case: schools, qualifying preschools, the library, a country club, parks, beaches, trails, gardens, community centers, telecommunications and renewable-energy infrastructure, and any use the Zoning Administrator finds substantially similar to one of these.

Retail, restaurants and housing are not on either list. Those are the uses Concepts 4, 5 and 6 rely on. Existing uses and special uses could continue under their current standards. The memo says those protections end, and the property becomes subject to the full new chapter, "if the property is no longer publicly owned."

The Village calls the district "a temporary measure" for the 18 to 24 months it expects the zoning ordinance rewrite to take. During that rewrite, staff plan to work with the Winnetka Park District, District 36, New Trier and the library to refine the rules. The memo also cites Winnetka Council Caucus surveys. In 2024, 75% of respondents said open space should be protected from development or sale. In 2025, fewer than 14% counted spaces without buildings, such as parking lots, as open space. The Village does not explain why the two downtown commercial parcels are on the map.

Our Town Winnetka has published an op-ed criticizing the inclusion of the Post Office parcel. The Village presents the district as a way to bring open space rules in line with the comprehensive plan. Both documents are linked above and worth reading in full.

Where Things Stand This Week

Here is the sequence, using dates from Village records and local reporting:

• September 3: Notice of the hearing ran in the Winnetka Talk. About 1,485 letters went to taxpayers within 250 feet of the affected properties.
• September 23: The Plan Commission held its public hearing. The Village Council has final jurisdiction. We have not found a published record of the Commission's recommendation, or of whether 512 Chestnut stayed on the map.
• October 13: Council special study session at 7:00 p.m.
• October 20: Regular Council meeting at 7:00 p.m. Our Town Winnetka reports the zoning ordinances could come up for a vote in October. We have not confirmed whether they are on this agenda.

The study session will not settle the site. According to Our Town Winnetka, Teska planned to narrow the six options to one or two before bringing them to the Council. Whether the zoning map still includes the lot will determine how much of the commercial side of that shortlist can go forward without the Council taking up a rezoning again.

There is plenty happening on Elm Street in the meantime. The Winnetka Farmers' Market at 754 Elm runs Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., with its last dates on October 17, 24 and 31. A block away, the Council has approved six commercial tenants for One Winnetka, including Ballyhoo's restaurant, Fare and Solidcore. In June the Council also swapped that project's planned public plaza at Elm and Lincoln for a 74-seat seasonal dining area run by Ballyhoo's.

At Mary Grant, we'll be following the October 13 study session and the October 20 meeting. If you'd like to talk through what's happening at 512 Chestnut, or any other Village project near your home, please schedule a private consultation.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.