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Schaumburg plans $20.6 million in road, infrastructure upgrades

Schaumburg trustees Tuesday will consider an approximately $20.6 million capital improvement plan for the year ahead that includes structural repairs to the village’s co-owned baseball stadium and replacement of many trees damaged by the emerald ash borer.

The plan will be funded with $16.7 million of village revenues and $3.8 million of grant money. The village’s share includes $2.5 million from a surplus left over from the 2010-11 budget year.

The majority of the plan consists of basic maintenance and upgrades of streets, sidewalks and sewers.

The plan includes a very specific list of projects for the fiscal year starting May 1 and a rougher outlook of the four years beyond that.

But the village foresees no major building projects in the next half decade, not even the performing arts theater that was once proposed to sit beside the village’s convention center, Assistant Village Manager Paula Hewson said.

Both the village and Schaumburg Park District are planning to spend $90,000 each for the repair of leaks caused by structural settlement of the baseball stadium they co-own.

The Schaumburg Boomers baseball team moving into the stadium this year has been involved in several upgrade projects of its own this offseason. But the team’s lease defines which types of maintenance are its responsibility and which are its landlords’, Hewson said, and structural issues at the 13-year-old stadium are the village and park district’s task to fix.

As the village’s ash tree inventory continues to be hard hit by infestations of the emerald ash borer, Schaumburg plans to spend $700,000 this year on the replacement of parkway trees. Of the capital improvement plan’s $20.6 million budget, 23 percent is going to roadways, 23 percent to water and sewer work, 18 percent to building maintenance, 17 percent to enhancements like landscaping, 11 percent to traffic signal maintenance, 4 percent to sidewalks, 3 percent to bikeways and 1 percent to the Schaumburg Regional Airport.

The village’s “1 percent for Art program,” which proposes 1 percent of each year’s capital improvement budget go toward art projects like the publicly displayed sculptures in the village, falls into the enhancements category.

No such art projects have been identified for this year, but the plan budgets $60,000 for the Olde Schaumburg Centre area around the intersection of Schaumburg and Roselle roads and another $75,000 for art projects elsewhere in the village.

The plan also budgets $1 million in infrastructure improvements and $560,000 for water detention for the proposed Pleasant Square mixed-use development just north of Schaumburg and Roselle roads.

That money would come from the tax-increment finance district funds earmarked for public improvements in that area. The TIF district, which helped redevelop the southwest corner of Schaumburg and Roselle roads into today’s Town Square, will expire in 2013.

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