Illinois Tollway oasis
Encyclopedia
Rest area
A rest area, travel plaza, rest stop, or service area is a public facility, located next to a large thoroughfare such as a highway, expressway, or freeway at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting on to secondary roads...
sited along interstate highways that are toll roads in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, United States. The seven oases offer food and gasoline vendors and are found in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, DeKalb
DeKalb, Illinois
DeKalb is a city in DeKalb County, Illinois, United States. The population was 43,862 at the 2010 census, up from 39,018 at the 2000 census. The city is named after decorated German war hero Johann De Kalb, who died during the American Revolutionary War....
, and Belvidere
Belvidere, Illinois
Belvidere is a city in Boone County, Illinois, United States. The population was 25,585 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Boone County. Belvidere is part of the Rockford, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
. Although the oases date back to the original tollway construction in 1958, they were redeveloped in 2003–05 by Wilton Partners, a private developer. The redevelopment of the oases has been the focal point of alleged political corruption. The seven oases are administered by a court-appointed manager following default of their developer, Wilton Partners.
Description and current status
As is typical for rest stops on toll highways, these areas are full service, or "commercialized," as a result of concessions awarded by the Illinois State Toll Highway AuthorityIllinois State Toll Highway Authority
The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority is an instrumentality and administrative agency of the State of Illinois, United States. The roads, as well as the Authority itself, are sometimes referred to as the Illinois Tollway...
(ISTHA).
Over 30 million visitors come to the oases each year. The oases in Illinois have gas stations (Mobil
Mobil
Mobil, previously known as the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, was a major American oil company which merged with Exxon in 1999 to form ExxonMobil. Today Mobil continues as a major brand name within the combined company, as well as still being a gas station sometimes paired with their own store or On...
) with 24 hour automated car washes, fast food restaurants (McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
, Panda Express
Panda Express
Panda Express is a fast casual restaurant chain serving American Chinese cuisine. It operates mainly inside the United States, in casinos, shopping malls, supermarkets, airports, train stations, strip plazas, theme parks, stadiums, college campuses and The Pentagon...
, Subway
Subway (restaurant)
Subway is an American restaurant franchise that primarily sells submarine sandwiches and salads. It is owned and operated by Doctor's Associates, Inc. . Subway is one of the fastest growing franchises in the world with 35,519 restaurants in 98 countries and territories as of October 25th, 2011...
, etc.), and other various shops (such as Krispy Kreme, Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
, Coleman Distributors, and TravelMart). Oases also have automatic teller machines. Six of the oases are built directly over the interstate highway they service. The oasis in DeKalb is the only exception, with the facility located along the southern (eastbound) side of Interstate 88
Interstate 88 (west)
Interstate 88 is an intrastate Interstate Highway in the state of Illinois. It runs from an interchange with Interstate 80 near Silvis and Moline to an interchange with Interstates 290 and 294 in Hillside, near Chicago...
, and a vehicle overpass allows westbound traffic to access a segregated parking lot and gas station along one side of the facility. All the oases provide free WiFi
Hotspot (Wi-Fi)
A hotspot is a site that offers Internet access over a wireless local area network through the use of a router connected to a link to an Internet service provider...
access for visitors. The oases have a drive through lane for the McDonald's. Five oases (except for Hinsdale and DeKalb) have Tollway Customer Service Centers, where I-Pass
I-Pass
I-PASS is the electronic toll collection system used by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority on its toll highways. It uses the same transponder as the E-ZPass system used in the Northeastern US, and the Indiana Toll Road's i-Zoom program....
toll transponders are sold and serviced. The oases have a total of 110000 ft2 of retail space. As of 2009, the oases were 45 percent to 65 percent vacant. ISTHA has established a special task force to study of the oases' future.
In December 2009, ExxonMobil, which operates gas stations and convenience stores at all seven oases, announced it is seeking to exit its lease and transfer responsibility to Combined Oil Co., a Lincolnshire-based fuel distribution company. The Tollway has 60 days to respond to the request. In addition, the Illinois Department of Transportation has proposed a route for a new limited access highway on the west side of O'Hare Airport which would connect with the Jane Addams Tollway at the site of the Des Plaines Oasis. Unless another route is approved, the oasis would have to be demolished for the new road.
Now,the covenience stores on the Illinois Tollway are operated by 7 Eleven
History
The five original oases were built in conjunction with the original tollway construction in 1959 and featured Standard OilStandard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
(Amoco) gas stations and Fred Harvey
Fred Harvey Company
The origin of the Fred Harvey Company can be traced to the 1875 opening of two railroad eating houses located at Wallace, Kansas and Hugo, Colorado on the Kansas Pacific Railway. These cafés were opened by Fred Harvey, then a freight agent for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad...
restaurants. In the mid 1970s, Howard Johnson's
Howard Johnson's
Howard Johnson's is a chain of hotels and restaurants, located primarily throughout the United States and Canada. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Howard Johnson's was the largest restaurant chain in the United States, with over 1,000 restaurants...
took over the restaurants. The Lincoln Oasis was added in 1968, and the DeKalb Oasis opened in 1975. Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher
Carrie Frances Fisher is an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and lecturer. She is most famous for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, her bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge, for which she wrote the screenplay to the film of the same name, and her...
attacks The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revivalist band founded in 1978 by comedy actors Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on Saturday Night Live...
at the Des Plaines Oasis in the famous 1980 film.
From 2003 to 2005, an extensive renovation program of these oases was completed. This involved demolishing the old oases structures to the bridge deck and replacing them with new buildings. Where in the previous buildings the view of the highways were blocked by the vendor restaurants, in the new buildings large expanses of glass are used to create a sense of openness, and to give patrons better views of the highway. The steel truss
Truss
In architecture and structural engineering, a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. External forces and reactions to those forces are considered to act only at the nodes and result in...
design also has greater roof height (nearly 30 feet (9.1 m)) than the old buildings, which increases visibility for the oases. The architects for the project were Cordogan Clark & Associates. The gas stations were rebuilt with canopes to cover the gas pumps. The oases were redeveloped at no cost or risk to the ISTHA. The $95 million investment was provided by Wilton Partners of Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, and ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
in exchange for a 25 year lease. Under the lease, Wilton would pay ISTHA a percentage of vendor sales with a minimum of $750,000 per year.
The lease agreements between ISTHA, Wilton Partners, and various vendors have come under investigation by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald
Patrick Fitzgerald
Patrick J. Fitzgerald is the current United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and a member of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel...
. This investigation, reported on 30 December 2005, will determine if a conflict of interest existed between the lessees and a political fundraiser for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich
Rod Blagojevich
Rod R. Blagojevich is an American politician who served as the 40th Governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009. A Democrat, Blagojevich was a State Representative before being elected to the United States House of Representatives representing parts of Chicago...
(Antoin Rezko). DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett
Joe Birkett
Joseph E. Birkett is the DuPage County State’s Attorney and former Republican nominee for Illinois Lieutenant Governor with running-mate Judy Baar Topinka. Birkett has been State’s Attorney since October 1, 1996 when he was appointed to fill the vacancy left by Anthony Peccarelli...
had also requested documents pertaining to these leases earlier in 2005. According to the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, the Subway restaurants in two oases are managed by the nephew of Tony Rezko
Tony Rezko
Antoin "Tony" Rezko is a Assyrian -American businessman, political fundraiser, restaurateur, and real estate developer in Chicago, Illinois, convicted on several counts of fraud and bribery in 2008. Rezko has been involved in fundraising for local Illinois Democratic and Republican politicians...
, the controversial political fundraiser. In response, tollway spokesmen noted that Wilton Partners was selected during the administration of Governor George Ryan
George Ryan
George Homer Ryan, Sr. was the 39th Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1999 until 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party. Ryan became nationally known when in 2000 he imposed a moratorium on executions and "raised the national debate on capital punishment"...
and that the lease gives Wilton discretion to select the individual vendors.
Lisa Madigan
Lisa Madigan has been the 41st Attorney General of the US state of Illinois since 2003, when she became the first female attorney general for Illinois...
rejected a proposed settlement where ISTHA would forego the $1.4 million in back rent in exchange for Wilton dropping a claim of $4.7 million for lost business due to tollway construction. In the spring of 2009, Wilton Partners' lender, iStar Financial, foreclosed on the oases. Subsequently, the court appointed U.S. Equities, a Chicago firm, to manage the oases pending the outcome of the foreclosure. Further, another food vendor operating in all seven oases who donated to Blagojevich has also received press attention for failure to pay sales taxes and state unemployment insurance.
On December 9, 2009, a truck driver standing at the gas station parking lot of the Belvidere oasis was killed when debris thrown by an explosion at an adjacent factory struck him. The six story factory building was hundreds of feet away from the oasis.
Locations
The seven oases are spread along the Tollway, with each oasis serving traffic in both directions. The Lincoln Oasis is strategically placed to serve east-west traffic crossing Illinois on Interstate 80Interstate 80
Interstate 80 is the second-longest Interstate Highway in the United States, following Interstate 90. It is a transcontinental artery running from downtown San Francisco, California to Teaneck, New Jersey in the New York City Metropolitan Area...
. The DeKalb Oasis serves traffic crossing Illinois on Interstate 88
Interstate 88 (west)
Interstate 88 is an intrastate Interstate Highway in the state of Illinois. It runs from an interchange with Interstate 80 near Silvis and Moline to an interchange with Interstates 290 and 294 in Hillside, near Chicago...
, and the Belvidere Oasis serves traffic travelling between Madison, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
, and Chicago on Interstate 90
Interstate 90
Interstate 90 is the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It is the northernmost coast-to-coast interstate, and parallels US 20 for the most part. Its western terminus is in Seattle, at Edgar Martinez Drive S. near Safeco Field and CenturyLink Field, and its eastern terminus is in...
. The Des Plaines and O'Hare oases also benefit from serving traffic, including returning rental cars, associated with O'Hare Airport. The only Tollway that does not have an oasis on it is the Veterans Memorial Tollway, (Interstate 355
Interstate 355
Interstate 355 , also known as the Veterans Memorial Tollway, is an Interstate Highway and tollway in the western and southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Like most other toll roads in the northeastern portion of the state, I-355 is maintained by a State Highway Authority...
), which opened decades after the other tollways and oases were built and the tollway was designed to serve local traffic.
| Name | Route | Milepost | Location | Coordinates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belvidere Oasis | I-90 Interstate 90 Interstate 90 is the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It is the northernmost coast-to-coast interstate, and parallels US 20 for the most part. Its western terminus is in Seattle, at Edgar Martinez Drive S. near Safeco Field and CenturyLink Field, and its eastern terminus is in... (Jane Addams Memorial Tollway) |
54.5 miles (87.7 km) | just east of Rockford, Illinois Rockford, Illinois Rockford is a mid-sized city located on both banks of the Rock River in far northern Illinois. Often referred to as "The Forest City", Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County, Illinois, USA. As reported in the 2010 U.S. census, the city was home to 152,871 people, the third most populated... in Belvidere, IL |
42.23343°N 88.834567°W. |
| DeKalb Oasis | I-88 Interstate 88 (west) Interstate 88 is an intrastate Interstate Highway in the state of Illinois. It runs from an interchange with Interstate 80 near Silvis and Moline to an interchange with Interstates 290 and 294 in Hillside, near Chicago... (Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway) |
93 miles (149.7 km) | near DeKalb, Illinois DeKalb, Illinois DeKalb is a city in DeKalb County, Illinois, United States. The population was 43,862 at the 2010 census, up from 39,018 at the 2000 census. The city is named after decorated German war hero Johann De Kalb, who died during the American Revolutionary War.... |
41.900178°N 88.739188°W. |
| Des Plaines Oasis | I-90 Interstate 90 Interstate 90 is the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It is the northernmost coast-to-coast interstate, and parallels US 20 for the most part. Its western terminus is in Seattle, at Edgar Martinez Drive S. near Safeco Field and CenturyLink Field, and its eastern terminus is in... (Jane Addams Memorial Tollway) |
4.5 miles (7.2 km) | near Des Plaines, Illinois Des Plaines, Illinois Des Plaines is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It has adopted the official nickname of "City of Destiny." As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 58,720. It is a suburb of Chicago, and is next to O'Hare International Airport... |
42.014697°N 87.926464°W. |
| Hinsdale Oasis | I-294 Interstate 294 Interstate 294 is a tolled Interstate Highway in northeastern Illinois, U.S.A.. It forms the southern portion of the Tri-State Tollway in Illinois. I-294 runs from South Holland at Interstates 80 and 94, and Illinois Route 394 to Northbrook at I-94. Interstate 294 is long; are shared with I-80.... (Tri-State Tollway Tri-State Tollway The Tri-State Tollway is a U.S. toll road maintained by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority in northeastern Illinois which is considered one of the most heavily traveled highways in the country... ) |
25 miles (40.2 km) | near Hinsdale, Illinois Hinsdale, Illinois Hinsdale is a suburb of Chicago, Illinois; it is located partly in Cook County and mainly in DuPage County in the U.S. state of Illinois. The population was 17,349 at the 2000 census. The town's ZIP code is 60521. The town has a rolling, wooded topography, with a quaint downtown and is a 30-minute... |
41.783497°N 87.90785°W. |
| Lake Forest Oasis | I-94 Interstate 94 Interstate 94 is the northernmost east–west Interstate Highway, connecting the Great Lakes and Intermountain regions of the United States. I-94's western terminus is in Billings, Montana at a junction with Interstate 90; its eastern terminus is the U.S... (Tri-State Tollway) |
18 miles (29 km) | near Lake Forest, Illinois Lake Forest, Illinois Lake Forest is an affluent city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The city is south of Waukegan along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was laid out as a town in... |
42.252952°N 87.901346°W. |
| Chicago Southland Lincoln Oasis | (I-80 Interstate 80 Interstate 80 is the second-longest Interstate Highway in the United States, following Interstate 90. It is a transcontinental artery running from downtown San Francisco, California to Teaneck, New Jersey in the New York City Metropolitan Area... /294 Interstate 294 Interstate 294 is a tolled Interstate Highway in northeastern Illinois, U.S.A.. It forms the southern portion of the Tri-State Tollway in Illinois. I-294 runs from South Holland at Interstates 80 and 94, and Illinois Route 394 to Northbrook at I-94. Interstate 294 is long; are shared with I-80.... ) (Tri-State Tollway) |
1 miles (1.6 km) | near South Holland, Illinois South Holland, Illinois South Holland is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States and serves as the seat of Thornton Township. The population was 22,147 at the 2000 census.-History:... |
41.57869°N 87.599052°W. |
| O’Hare Oasis | (I-294 Interstate 294 Interstate 294 is a tolled Interstate Highway in northeastern Illinois, U.S.A.. It forms the southern portion of the Tri-State Tollway in Illinois. I-294 runs from South Holland at Interstates 80 and 94, and Illinois Route 394 to Northbrook at I-94. Interstate 294 is long; are shared with I-80.... ) (Tri-State Tollway) |
38 miles (61.2 km) | near Schiller Park, Illinois Schiller Park, Illinois Schiller Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 11,850 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Schiller Park is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all of it land.... |
41.95056°N 87.882477°W. |