The doors are expected to open about a year from now on the largest commercial development in downtown Naperville’s history. But at the moment, the Water Street District is abuzz with tradespeople.
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The $93 million hotel/restaurant/retail redevelopment project that flanks the block-long street on the south end of downtown Naperville has been under way for six months, already re-sculpting a significant stretch of the southern bank of the DuPage River segment that flows through the city core. On any given work day, the site is filled with iron workers and concrete crews, equipment operators and laborers.
The river was flowing a bit too briskly in May and June, thanks to unusually heavy rains, and that held up work temporarily, according to Jeff Prosapio, vice president of developer Marquette Companies and director of project management for MP Water Street District LLP.
“It was in terms of days. We lost a few days to heavy rain,” he said.
Crews were put on other areas of the project, Prosapio said, and there haven’t been weather-related troubles since then.
According to Andy Hynes, the city’s project engineer for the development, foundations for the structures that make up the 214,235 square feet of new commercial space are mostly in, well ahead of the ground freezing, and construction is moving along.
“No major holdups,” he said. “There have been a few design issues, but nothing big. We worked through those.”
The cool summer and low rainfall in recent weeks enabled construction contractor Lend Lease to recoup some of the lost days.
“We were able to make up for some of the challenges we were facing from the river,” Marquette spokeswoman Deborah Newman said last week.
The project’s primary focal point right now appears to be the machine that towers high above the 2.4-acre site between Webster and Main streets.
“The crane is the most amazing thing. Families are making it a destination,” Bill Novack, head of the city’s Transportation, Engineering and Development department, told members of the Riverwalk Commission at their meeting earlier this month.
Positioned to place the elevator in the 520-space parking deck at the center of the project, the crane will also be needed for other components of the structures that comprise the development.
Work on the 160-room Hotel Indigo is scheduled to begin in November, Prosapio said.
“The parking deck main structure will be mainly erected, and then we’ll build the hotel around it,” Prosapio said last week. “(The crane) will travel basically up and down Water Street while the hotel is being built.”
The parking garage will belong to the city, which will lease 120 of the spaces to operators of the Hotel Indigo and provide the other 400 as public parking.
Hynes said the parking deck should be open for use sometime next summer.
“There’s still quite a ways to go on that,” he said this week.
Also in the plans during the month are laying the foundation and placing the structural steel for the Loggia Building, which will house banquet and restaurant space, among other uses, overlooking the Riverwalk.
Prosapio said the current crew of 40 to 50 workers on site each day will grow to about 120 tradespeople every day by springtime. He doesn’t expect winter’s ice and gales to hinder progress.
“Our plan is to keep on going and have things to do while we have inclement weather,” he said.
The goal, he said, is to turn over the core and shell of each tenant’s space on schedule, to allow those business operators to install fixtures and furniture, add paint and accomplish everything else that’s needed before their grand openings, expected in late October or early November next year.
“If we have a normal winter, we’ll likely deliver in mid- to late-August,” Prosapio said of the tenants’ projected takeover of their business spaces.
Two restaurant chains already have signed on to occupy spaces in the development. Bien Trucha, which specializes in upscale Mexican tapas and craft mescal and tequila cocktails at its Geneva location, will open at Webster and Water streets, Prosapio said, at the northwest corner of the hotel. Blue Sushi Sake Grill, based in Omaha, is slated for a spot overlooking the river. Both companies came on board nearly two years ago.
Prosapio said negotiations involving other restaurant spaces in the development are in process with operators specializing in the farm-to-table concept, craft beer and burger menus, and the combination of wine bar and charcuterie. All of those businesses have existing sites in other locations, he said.
On the retail side, London Sky Clothing plans to open a store, Prosapio said, and Traveling Tots, an educational drop-off program for kids, also is a signed tenant. According to Traveling Tots’ website, plans call for a spring opening.
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Some commercial space remains available on Water Street.
“We’re about 50 to 60 percent leased right now, so we have a little more than half to go,” Prosapio said.
That’s far closer to complete redevelopment than the formerly quiet piece of the downtown has ever come. Long in the planning stages and discussed conceptually since at least the 1980s, the Water Street overhaul stalled out in the past when prospective buyers of the land were unable to agree on purchasing terms with the property’s owners. The proposal was resurrected in mid-2012, revised numerous times and garnered final clearance from the city in February of this year.
Ruth Yackley, one of the partners behind development of the upscale Main Street Promenade retail/office centers on the north end of the commercial core, said the completed Water Street complex will shift the dynamic of the downtown district, drawing business travelers and other visitors with shopping and dining needs they will meet nearby.
“I think it will add something to our downtown,” Yackley said at a recent Downtown Advisory Commission meeting. “It’ll be great.”
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