Lukewarm reviews for Mitchell plans

Consultants will be going back to the drawing board after receiving mixed reviews Thursday for their plans to reconfigure the Caroline Martin Mitchell estate.

Houseal Lavigne Associates presented two concept drawings to representatives of each of the groups that use the 212 acres of property south of Aurora Avenue and west of Washington Street. The drawings show how the space could be reconfigured to make it more efficient.

Martin Mitchell donated the land to the city in 1936. It houses Naperville Central High School, Knoch Park, Naper Settlement, Von Oven Scout Reservation, Naperville Sportsman's Club, community garden plots, Naperville Cemetery and part of the Edward Hospital campus.

In light of Naperville Unit District 203's desire to renovate or rebuild Naperville Central, the groups began meeting last fall to see if there were better ways to organize the entire property. Houseal Lavigne joined the project in February and interviewed all of the stakeholders to find out the needs of each group.

The two concepts they presented Thursday were based on hybrids of previous plans they had drawn for an oversight committee that has been meeting to give its input.

Concept A does not make drastic changes to the land. The plan keeps Central in its current location at 440 W. Aurora Ave. and makes accommodations for the $72 million in renovations and additions District 203 is considering. This concept also keeps Hillside Road open, reorganizes athletic fields at Knoch Park and calls for a shared parking deck between Naper Settlement and Central.

Naper Settlement and Edward Hospital would proceed with their own expansion plans and consultant Devin Lavigne brought up the possibility of the park district sharing some fitness space with the hospital. Central's soccer fields, the Von Oven Scout Reservation, Sportsman's Park and garden plots would all remain on the west side of West Street.

Concept B, which Lavigne called more exciting and aggressive, includes a new Naperville Central High School on what is now the northern portion of Knoch Park. District 203 is estimating a new school could cost about $130 million to $140 million. Part of the old Central building would be kept as a park district recreational center.

This concept also calls for the creation of a nature center for outdoor education and field trips. It would keep only a portion of the garden plots and move the rest to four or five satellite locations around the city.

There would also be additional athletic fields on the land and both Oswego Road and Emerald Drive would be rerouted to improve traffic flow. Hillside Road would come to a T intersection with a new road that goes from Edward Hospital along the east side of Knoch Park to a traffic signal at Rotary Hill. The cemetery, Scout camp, stadium and Sportsman's Park would all remain in their current locations.

Park board President Kristen Jungles and school board Vice President Susan Crotty both said they were expecting more out of the plans.

Consultant John Houseal said they were trying to be realistic about the possibilities.

"It would have been a very fun creative exercise to come in here, though unrealistic, to assume this canvas was blank," Houseal said. "It would be a great design exercise. We'd love to do it, but it would be so far removed from the fact that the hospital is where it is, the cemetery is where it is ... so we looked at a lot of creative options, but some things were fixed reality."

Some stakeholders said they would like to see more of the options that were considered, and others questioned how the timeline for making decisions about the land fits in with the school district's timeline for choosing which plan to pursue.

Councilman Dick Furstenau said while he found Concept B interesting, he would be concerned about it seeming as if the groups were backing either the renovation or rebuild of Central before it would go to referendum in February.

Consultants said they will provide the groups with more information about other options they looked at and tweak the drawings for a future meeting, possibly in October.