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2013 APA-CMS Fall Conference & APA-IL Awards

Teska is honored to have received two of the eight 2013 APA-IL Awards in the categories of “Strategic Plan” for the Prairie Grove Town Center and Transit Oriented Development Plan and “Best Practices” for the South Suburban Retail Investment Study. The Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association received 42 nominations across seven award categories.

BIG CONGRATS to this year’s winners and BIG THANKS to the communities, organizations, and individuals involved, including the talented folks and planning teams pictured below.

2013 APA-IL Strategic Plan Award
Prairie Grove Town Center & TOD Plan

View Plan!

[From left to right: Todd Vanadilok, Teska Associates, Inc. Jeannine Smith, Prairie Grove Village Administrator, Tony Manno, Project Manager, Local Planning & Programs at Regional Transportation Authority, Courtney Kashima, APA-IL President]

2013 APA-IL Best Practices Award
South Suburban Retail Investment Study

View Plan!

[From left to right: Tom Mick, Park Forest Village Manager, Hildy Kingma, Park Forest Director of Economic Development and Planning, Bridget Lane, Business Districts, Inc. Director, Mike Hoffman, Teska Associates, Inc. Janet Smith, UIC Nathalie P. Voorhees Center Co-Director, David Mekarski, Olympia Fields Village Administrator, Courtney Kashima, APA-IL President, David Fitzgerald, Richton Park Director of Economic Development]

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Development Approval as Economic Development

People want to know how to attract economic development, as was evident by the full-house of round table listeners at the “Development Approval as Economic Development” session at the APA-CMS Fall Conference.

Teska Principal, Michael Blue, FAICP joined Michael D’Onofrio, Community Development Director with the Village of Winnetka and Peter Tremulis, Division Vice President – Land Aquisition, Pulte Group, Inc. to talk about how to attract private investment and economic development. The discussion highlighted public and private perspectives regarding the entitlement process and offered suggestions on improving development approval systems to encourage desirable development.

“It is about understanding perspective in development to ensure a town’s process gets them what they want, not scares away desirable development.” – Michael Blue, FAICP, Teska Principal
The discussion highlighted 3 main themes:

1. Make sure the parts of your development process “add value” to the ultimate development;
2. Communicate clearly both internally (departments/commissions) and externally (with the development world) and;
3. Work to create a predictable process – it will create the best outcomes.