Morton Grove officials are gleeful about an unexpected $1 million awarded by the federal government for the Dempster Street commercial corridor improvement project.

The money, included in an appropriations bill signed last month by President George W. Bush, “will go a long way to making our improvements possible,” Village Manager Larry Arft said Friday.

He and village Economic Development Director Tim Angell praised U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-9th) for her work in getting the money.

“We didn’t expect any assistance,” Angell said Monday. “We had spent several hours with Rep. Schakowsky on a walking tour of the corridor in April of 2002.

“She talked with several businesses there,” Angell added. “Then a couple of months later her grant coordinator called to say she was going to try to get $500,000 appropriated for the project.

“I am surprised and very, very, very, happy.”

Arft said he didn’t learn until Feb. 24 that the amount had been doubled.

“This project needs a good deal of money so I was very happy to learn we had gotten it,” Schakowsky said last Thursday.

Neither village officials nor those in Schakowsky’s office knew how or when the money would be disbursed.

The commercial corridor project will improve traffic circulation on Dempster, which handles more than 40,000 vehicles daily.

The plan includes adding a center turn lane and eliminating parallel parking between the Edens Expressway and the county forest preserves.

Morton Grove has a $3.5 million state grant to buy land to create off-street parking lots serving corridor businesses. Three sites have already been bought and the village hopes to buy three more, Angell said.

The village also is seeking a $3 million federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program grant, he said. That would be used for the turn lane and widening intersections.

That application was submitted Jan. 31, and a preliminary decision on who has made the grant list is expected in September or October, said Noel Baquin, village assistant public works director.

As well, Arft said officials hope to get state transportation department funds for aesthetic improvements along the street.

Angell said the costs to landscape Dempster haven’t yet been estimated, but said last month’s $1 million appropriation might be directed toward that.

The project is set to begin in late 2003 or early 2004, Arft said, with the opening of some parking lots. Work will continue through 2005 and could go as far as 2006, he said.

A master plan for Dempster improvement was approved by the village board in August 2001.