Workers began flowing onto Water Street this week, laying the foundation for construction of a boutique hotel, a new parking deck and retail and restaurant space on the southern edge of Naperville’s downtown commercial core.
“It’s great to see,” said Jeff Prosapio, vice president of developer Marquette Companies and director of project management for MP Water Street District LLP, stopping by to check on the site work Monday morning.
Plans called for Water Street to be closed off to vehicles and foot traffic beginning Thursday. The existing buildings on the 2.4-acre site – bounded by the West Branch of the DuPage River, Water Street, Webster Street and the alley that lines the north edge of the businesses on the block that face Aurora Avenue – are slated to be razed on Friday, Prosapio said, with the exception of the bank building on the southwest corner of Main and Webster streets and the Naperville Township building, which sits at the northwest corner of the property. The demolition process and removal of the materials it yields will continue until about the end of April.
Construction of the long-planned $93 million development is expected to take about 18 months. Anchoring the commercial compound will be the 158-room Hotel Indigo boutique inn, which “will create a separate downtown hotel submarket that does not currently exist,” Marquette CEO Nick Ryan said in a prepared statement that predicts the completed development will draw $12 million in new food and beverage tax income over its first two decades and boost the downtown’s overall commercial income by five percent..
The plans also include a parking deck with capacity for 520 vehicles. Four hundred of the parking spaces will be available for public use. Four restaurant spaces, one of them on a rooftop overlooking the river, also will be part of the development, along with retail spaces and eventually rented offices. A cafe within the hotel and a banquet facility and event space in a separate building across Water Street, accessed via a second-story foot bridge, also are planned.
Approved initially by the city more than two years ago, the development plan underwent assorted revisions that expanded its square footage 23 percent by the time it drew the City Council’s approval earlier this year. A 25-year tax increment financing agreement incorporated into the project will provide funds to cover the city’s portion of public improvements related to the development. Ryan said his company also has agreed to compensate the city with $103,000 for interest expenses incurred by the repeated delays.
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