Commonwealth Edison is planning a significant upgrade of a key site it occupies on the 5100 block of Church Street.
The Skokie Plan Commission on Sept. 15 unanimously recommended five measures associated with the project — the site plan, two zoning map amendments, a street vacation and subdividing the property.
The site plan calls for upgrades for a reporting center and fleet garage, an equipment and vehicle storage building, multiple electrical switchyard buildings, outdoor electrical and distribution equipment and a parking lot.
ComEd External Affairs manager and lawyer Carlo Cavallero called Transmission Substation 88 (TSS 88) “an important facility for nearly 100 years” for Commonwealth Edison.
“It’s a critical interconnection point that our team will describe,” he said. “(The property) is unique. It’s transmission, distribution and virtually everything in between. It’s also a reporting ground for our underground office.”
According to Cavallero, ComEd has invested millions of dollars in smart grid technology at this site.
“This is a mission critical facility, and we’ve also been installing mission critical security upgrades to protect that facility,” he said. “Our whole goal is to provide continued reliable safe, secure state-of-the-art electrical service. That’s what’s driving all of the improvements.”
Lawyer Scott Saef of Sidney Austin LLP, which represents ComEd, said the site holds a convergence of lines that he called “the backbone of the electrical system.”
TSS 88 contains electrical transmission and distribution equipment that enables the transfer of electricity from high 345-kilovolt lines running from the north, south, and west to the region, according to Saef.
The site also includes a “reporting center” that, according to Commonwealth Edison, “functions as a regional office to which a variety of employees from different work groups are primarily assigned.”
The workers may include crews assigned to substation monitoring and maintenance, meter reading, vegetation management, work planning, reliability engineering, large customer sales and engineering, and overhead and underground construction and maintenance, ComEd said.
Not only would the upgrade include several small, new buildings within the TSS 88 substations, but also new state-of-the-art secure fencing that ComEd says follows a federal directive about beefing up security at such sites.
“As part of this project, new decorative fencing will be installed along that part of the Church Street frontage lying east of the now-discontinued Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way,” according to ComEd.
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ComEd also would build a new secured entrance along Church Street and improve screening and landscaping, particularly along Church, Emerson Street near Leamington Avenue and along the western property line south of Emerson, it said.
The Skokie Village Board will take final action at an upcoming meeting.
Twitter: @SKReview_Mike.