Wheaton council reviews cost estimates of downtown improvements
Cost estimates for improvements to Wheaton's downtown have been significantly lowered from estimates presented to the city council earlier this year, but city officials still have concerns about funding the work.
“It's been a lengthy process to this point, but I think we're getting to the finish line,” said City Manager Michael Dzugan.
In April, Design Workshop — the landscape architecture firm helping implement parts of the city's downtown strategic and streetscape plan — presented good, better and best options for pedestrian, festival and other streets, South Main Street, the French market structure and a downtown plaza.
Cost estimates for those options totaled to about $71 million for good, $90 million for better and $116 million for best. City staff quickly expressed concerns about the high costs and asked for the good, better and best options to be redefined.
Originally, the good category met all the objectives contained in the city's downtown strategic plan document. Now, the best category meets all objectives. The good and better categories meet only the metrics with the highest priority.
On Monday, the council heard more details about the new cost estimates, which total to about $47 million for good, $58 million for better and $88 million for best.
Design Workshop representatives said some of the variables between the three categories included the number and size of new trees that would be planted, the type of material used for paving, different lighting options and other features.
A survey completed by more than 500 residents earlier this year showed 85 percent supporting the idea of installing overhead lighting along festival streets, which Design Workshop representatives said is an expensive project. Residents also expressed strong support for rain gardens and permeable pavers in parking stalls, combined with large tree trenches.
Overall, residents said the most important projects they would like to see completed from the downtown strategic plan were erecting a permanent French Market structure, creating a downtown plaza and turning Liberty Street into a festival street.
In the most recent cost estimate, the French Market structure would cost about $4 million, the festival streets would cost between $6 million and $9 million and a central park would cost between $2 million and $3 million.
The city council will discuss the new plans and costs again in the coming weeks. Dzugan told the council to keep in mind that the current downtown streetscape is more than 30 years old and beginning to deteriorate. He also asked the council to consider ways it could include desired components while also balancing the cost of materials, determining what should be done first and possibly narrowing the size of the project area.
“For us, for the staff, we need to have a sense of your appetite for the revenue that's going to be necessary to pay for this work,” he said. “We're going to probably have to sell bonds no matter which way we do it.”