Archives: Main St. Promenade groundbreaking

This story, written by Susan Stevens, first appeared in the Daily Herald on Nov. 2, 2002.

Developers held a ceremonial groundbreaking Friday for Main Street Promenade, a $40 million retail and residential project in downtown Naperville.

The development will include three floors of offices and shops on Van Buren Avenue west of Main Street, as well as 30 condominiums on Benton Avenue.

Site work began in August. The first shops should open in the fall of 2003, said developer Dwight Yackley, president of BBM Inc.

Yackley declined to name any of the retail tenants.

Construction of the condominiums will begin after the commercial portion opens, Yackley said. The earliest new residents could move in is late 2004.

The project will include artwork as part of Century Walk, Naperville's downtown public art project. A 9-foot-high bronze sculpture titled “Spirit of the Earth” will commemorate the city's progressive recycling efforts.

Artist Jeff Adams is designing a sculpture of two children and Mother Earth that will be placed in a fountain in an interior courtyard of the development.

Adams' Mt. Morris, Ill., foundry also cast the Horse Market Days sculpture at Naper Settlement.