First stage of Naperville's Southwest Community Park could cost $11 million
The Naperville Park District is planning to borrow roughly $11 million to develop former farmland in an area of the city where home construction is booming, but commissioners likely won't make a final decision until later this year.
The tax-backed loans would pay for the first stage of the project to turn the district's last, large swath of open land - 33 acres - into a recreation complex with trails, a challenge course, sand volleyball court, playground, sled hill and other amenities.
The park board and consultants from the firm Piper Jaffray on Thursday night reviewed several approaches to structuring the debt to finance the Southwest Community Park project at 3252 Wolf's Crossing Road.
Under the funding plan, the district wouldn't need voter permission to issue the bonds. Its so-called debt service extension base enables the district to sell bonds without going to referendum but caps the principal and interest payments the district can levy against property taxpayers to pay off the debt.
If the board moves forward with borrowing $11 million, the owner of a home valued at $375,000 - the average in the district - would pay approximately 62 cents to 90 cents more annually over the life of the debt on the bond levy portion of the tax bill from the district.
But those are early estimates based on several assumptions and a preliminary schedule for retiring the debt that the board has not finalized, said Sue Stanish, the district's finance director.
Commissioners also have not settled on an official name for the new complex. The district has long referred to the site as Southwest Community Park, but it has more recently received requests to christen it Wolf's Crossing.
The park could be under construction in a year in an area of Naperville growing with new subdivisions. The long-term vision for the park has taken shape after the district received feedback from roughly 2,000 people in a survey and meetings.
An indoor pool was the highest-ranked park feature sought by survey participants, but district leaders have said Southwest Community Park is too far toward the edge of the city for pool construction to be logical and financially viable there. A sand volleyball court, by contrast, was added to designs after resident meetings, which began in January.
Among the next steps for the board is holding a public hearing about issuing the bonds. That meeting is tentatively set for Aug. 23.