As the City of Naperville reevaluates the Riverwalk 2031 Master Plan’s south extension/Hillside Gateway project, the Naperville Riverwalk Commission wants to keep the south extension’s full path from Hillside Road to Martin Avenue.
The south extension/Hillside Gateway project is one of about a dozen Riverwalk improvement projects meant to commemorate the Riverwalk’s 50th anniversary in 2031.
It is currently earmarked in the city’s draft 2027 budget at $6.8 million. About $1.5 million in outside funding has been set aside for the south extension portion of the project, which includes $800,000 allocated from state Rep. Janet Yang-Rohr and $700,000 from Edward-Elmhurst Health.
“The intent was to get the project out to bid, get the project started this year,” Naperville City Engineer Andy Hynes said. “We’re kind of on the cusp of that right now because we are still going through some final review details on that, so not sure if we’re going to be able to get it out of the bid specifically this year, but … that’s our goal.”
But Hynes said that the capital improvements project budget for the city’s Transportation, Engineering and Development department for 2027 was a little higher than usual for the department, prompting city staff to find ways to cut costs.
Since the $6.8 million figure for the south extension/Hillside Gateway project is more than what the city originally planned on spending on that project, staff looked at modified versions of it and presented three alternatives at Wednesday’s Riverwalk Commission meeting.
The first option included an overlook structure along with traffic crossings and improvements at the intersection of Martin Avenue and Washington Street, but much of the originally planned extension of the low flow riverwalk path to Hillside Road would have been excluded. That option is estimated to have cost around $1.79 million, bringing it closer to within budget of the $1.5 million in external funding for the project.
Option two came in around $3.2 million, which is closer to the $3 million that the city originally anticipated the project would cost. This version would have included everything in option one and the low flow riverwalk would have extended farther to an electrical substation, but the full low flow riverwalk connection to Hillside Road still would have been excluded.
The final option was to preserve the original extended path of the low flow riverwalk from Martin Avenue to Hillside Road while removing or refining other design details, putting that option at around $6 million. Option three also kept an adjusted version of the Hillside Gateway portion of the project.
Riverwalk commissioners who were present Wednesday appeared to be in agreement: the original end-to-end connection from Martin Avenue to Hillside Road is important for the Riverwalk’s future and should remain as intended. Refinement of other design details for the south extension/Hillside Gateway project would be determined at a future meeting.
“Options one and two will have Riverwalk design elements, so they’ll have the branding in place, and then to have the destination of that section of the Riverwalk end at the electrical substation, I think, does a disservice to the legacy of the Riverwalk,” said Commissioner Hannah Brauer.
While Hynes said the project is supposed to go out to bid this year, planning and extensive discussions about the south extension project have been ongoing for well over a decade.
“It actually was supposed to go out to bid years ago; it got delayed multiple times,” Councilman Ian Holzhauer, who is on the Riverwalk Commission, said after the meeting. “It is scheduled to go out to bid this year, so making last-minute changes to me seems like it’s potentially short-circuiting or doing an end run around 10 years’ worth of careful work that our consultants, our volunteers and our designers have put forth towards this project.”
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