Kane County can look forward to Longmeadow Parkway in 2024
The biggest changes Kane County residents can expect in 2024 include the opening of the Longmeadow Parkway and the county taking ownership of a stadium.
Kane County Board Chair Corinne Pierog said the opening of the Longmeadow Parkway over the Fox River – without tolls – will be “a huge economic driver” for the entire region, as Kane and southern McHenry County commuters will have an additional way to cross the river to and from work and avoid traffic backups.
“This is a mark in the win column,” Pierog said. “Everybody said I could not get the (money) from the state for it. I said, ‘I can try.’”
The first allocation was $17.5 million in the state’s budget for the 2023 fiscal year and an additional $12.5 million in the 2024 budget, she said.
And there was local buy-in, she said.
“McHenry County gave us $1 million. Cook County promised another $1 million,” Pierog said. “And we will provide the rest of the $3 million needed to eliminate the toll.”
As for Northwestern Medicine Field, the stadium in Geneva where the Kane County Cougars baseball team plays needs upgrades to keep it competitive with other minor league ball teams, Pierog said.
“We are looking at working with the forest preserve district and have some advocacy downstate to see if the county absorb the stadium,” Pierog said. “And with that, we can apply for grants and see what other opportunities we can get without taxpayer dollars.”
There are restrictions as to what a forest preserve district can do, but a county has more flexibility, she said.
“We will see what we can do to help restore and build up the stadium so it can be competitive,” Pierog said. “We want certain bells and whistles. It’s important to keep the baseball team here in Kane.”
The goal is to have the county own the stadium and have the same type of relationship the forest preserve has with Cougars owner and president Dr. Bob Froehlich, she said.
A tourism project that will start in the new year is a completed engineering study on the Fox River Trail for canoe site launches, Pierog said.
“They will have locks so people can lock up their canoe and paddles and go into town or walk on the trail,” Pierog said. “We will start with a few areas, a little at a time, to measure how successful they are. Then we will continue to grow them through the whole stretch of the river in Kane County.”
The promise of 2023 was to complete a study and begin an Economic Development Council of professionals from a variety of fields to assist businesses to locate in the area, she had said last year.
This is the year to launch it, she said.
The intent is to have a public-private partnership in the region.
“If a business cannot find anything in Geneva,” Pierog said, “instead of going to DuPage (County), we can say, ‘Take a look at Elburn.’”