Drivers who head over to the Montrose Beach area to run, relax at the beach, play soccer and softball, hop aboard a boat or walk along the lakefront may find their parking options a bit more limited come fall.
The Wilson Avenue metered parking lot west of the Montrose Dog Beach and north of Cricket Hill in Uptown will be repaired for $2.7 million. Part of the project will be funded by an Environmental Protection Agency grant and the additional money would come from the city’s Department of Water Management and the Chicago Park District.
The park board at its Wednesday meeting approved a contract for the project designed to handle storm water on site by adding new landscaping to reduce the load into the city’s sewer system, a park district spokeswoman said. The lot is filled with potholes and has collapsed catch basins, a park district official said. The existing asphalt, curbs and drainage structures will be removed and new drainage lines, catch basins and asphalt paving will be installed, according to a park district document.
There’s street parking available on Wilson Avenue and Simonds Drive and another lot across from Montrose Harbor but parking can be tough on weekends when a number of people tend to flock to the lakefront for grilling, running races or training for the marathon among other activities.
The spokeswoman said the parking lot will be closed this fall but did not provide a specific date for the closure. Construction is expected to be completed in mid-December and landscaping to be done by late May. The lot will reopen in the spring, she said, but did not provide a specific re-open date.
Once completed, the number of spots will be reduced from 585 to 520, she said.
It’s unclear if meter prices would be impacted once the lot reopens. The current parking lot rates are $1.75 an hour from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and 75 cents an hour at other times.
The park district board at Wednesday’s meeting also officially renamed 31st Street Beach and adjacent green space as Margaret T. Burroughs Beach and Park in honor of the DuSable Museum co-founder and former park district commissioner who died in 2010.
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“Margaret Burroughs was a selfless servant, extraordinary creative artist and tremendous founder of institutions that continue to serve on behalf of Chicago’s citizens,” said Congressman Bobby Rush, who appeared at the meeting to encourage the board to vote for the name change.