Batavia officials held back-to-back dedication ceremonies last weekend, highlighting both a new project as well as the renaming of a site nearby, both honoring the concept of peace.
The first ceremony last Saturday involved the dedication of the new Peace Ramp on the east side of the Fox River, near the intersection of North River and State streets, which provides a connection between the lower Fox River Trail and the iconic Peace Bridge over the Fox River.
Construction began on the Peace Ramp in the spring of 2025 after the city approved more than $3 million for the project, which involved installing a bicycle/pedestrian ramp to ease access from the Fox River up to street level.
The ramp was gifted by the city to the Batavia Park District.
“This ramp is that conduit from the river level trail up to River Street,” said Batavia Park District Executive Director Allison Niemela. “It’s the first time that pedestrians as well as cyclists won’t have to use stairs.”
Batavia City Administrator Laura Newman said the project “is really a fine example of a collaboration that happens here in the city of Batavia between multiple organizations.”
“This solves a problem. We’ve got stairs there on the west side bike path and the ramp solves that,” she said, calling the ramp “an everlasting treasure for community use.”
Chris Bong, engineer for the city of Batavia as well as the project manager for the ramp, said “the challenge was keeping things open for pedestrian traffic” during the work on the project.
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Batavia resident Jim Dykhuis said he cycles and jogs down the path quite a bit and said the new ramp should be popular.
“I think this will really help the bike traffic,” he said.
The second dedication ceremony last Saturday was held at a brick-paved area just outside the Jeffrey Schielke Government Center where the Batavia Park Board renamed South Riverwalk Plaza as Peace Plaza.
Batavia Mayor Jeff Schielke said both projects honored last weekend “encourage people to visit our town.”
“We’ve tried the last few years to continue to enhance Batavia’s appearance and the use of the river,” he said. “Overall, I think we’ve done a pretty good job with it.”
Britta McKenna of Batavia, who has been active in the Peace Bridge and other projects in town, said the renaming of the site as Peace Plaza is meaningful.
“This is now the peace corridor and we have the wonderful little Peace Garden that the Parks Foundation did and now the park board is now renaming this today as the Peace Plaza and we have the Peace on Earth bridge and the ramp,” she said. “Now, you can come to Batavia and find your peace.”
The Rotary Club added a Peace Pole to the Peace Plaza with the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth” written in eight different languages.
Mark Lucas, president of the Rotary Club of Batavia, said the message on the Peace Pole is important.
“These languages reflect the rich diversity of our Batavia community, and they also remind us that while we may have come from different cultures and speak different languages or have different traditions our deepest hopes are remarkably familiar,” he said. “Every community hopes to flourish in peace.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.