Following years of delays, work has started on a new Naperville/North Central College park on Washington Street in downtown Naperville.
Construction on the property, located off the DuPage River and Naperville Riverwalk and next to a Burger King restaurant, is slated to be finished by Oct. 30 at a cost of about $2.1 million. The city has secured $1.3 million in state grants to help pay for the project.
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Once complete, it will serve as a gateway between the city’s downtown and the North Central College campus.
“The college and the city have really grown up together and they have evolved together and what a cool symbol to have a park that everybody in the community can use that connects the city and the Riverwalk and the college,” said Jim Godo, North Central’s vice president for communications and external affairs.
The park is the latest addition in the city’s years-long initiative to improve the Naperville Riverwalk in time for its 50th — and the city’s 200th — anniversary in 2031. There are a dozen projects the city plans to tackle as part of the plan, including new path sections and ecological riverbank restoration.
Some of the projects, like the revamped Eagle Street Gateway and the Paddleboat Quarry overlooks, have already been completed.
From the city’s end, construction of the park includes developing a low-flow walkway along the river to provide pedestrian connectivity between the Washington Street bridge and the Moser covered bridge.
A gateway sign for North Central College will be added at the park’s Washington Street entrance. The city is responsible for building the archway foundation and North Central will oversee the sign’s decorative and above-ground work. The school is also responsible for installing plaques highlighting the school’s history within two plazas being built as part of the park.
“We’re talking about small plaques, if you will, but the archway … is designed to tie in and match the pillars that we have around our campus,” Godo said. “There’s a number of pillars that sit throughout our campus that pay homage to the limestone of Old Main, and the limestone at 430 S. Washington (St.) will match those pillars.”
North Central does not have current cost estimates for the archway and signage, he said.
Plans to develop the nearly 0.4-acres of land located at 430 S. Washington St. into a park date back to the early 2010s, but state funding freezes and work on the Washington Street Bridge forced the city to put the project on the backburner.
“It’s great that we’re able to finally get the ball kicked off here and start moving towards the development of the property,” Naperville City Engineer Andy Hynes said.
North Central College purchased the property in 2012 with a vision for a park along the DuPage River that would connect the city and the college, Godo said. Before then, the property was owned by a family who had a building on the site.
“Going back a long time, the property was kind of an eyesore and there was an old, kind of abandoned building on it that got knocked down a long time ago,” Hynes said.
In 2014, officials from the city, NCC and the Naperville Park District met to discuss turning the empty plot into a park. That same year, the city started developing park plans and secured a $1.1 million state grant to help fund construction.
However, shortly before the city planned to hire a contractor, the state froze the funding. It took four years for the money to become available again and by then, plans to replace the Washington Street Bridge were starting to take shape.
“A good portion of the reason for the delay was just the construction of the (Washington Street) bridge,” Hynes said. “Since it was immediately adjacent to the site, it was used partially during the bridge construction for some material and equipment storage because there really was no other area that could be used.”
Now, with work on the Washington Street Bridge complete, the city can finally move forward with the park. Another state grant totaling $200,000 was secured for in 2025.
Once construction is complete, the next project the city will focus on is the South Gateway project, which will extend the Riverwalk from Hillside Road down to Martin Avenue near the Edward Hospital campus.
“It’s nice to finally see this kind of start to move forward into something that’s going to be a public asset, that’s going to look nice (and) be a nice gateway into the college campus and into the downtown area,” Hynes said.
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