A bridge to somewhere? $9 million price tag for pedestrian overpass into Busse Woods
A bridge that will get runners, walkers and cyclists from Busse Woods over to a new retail and residential gateway corner redevelopment will cost $8.3 million, under a contract approved by Elk Grove Village officials.
Add in another $1 million for construction engineering of the new pedestrian bridge over Arlington Heights Road — set to be built starting this spring about 700 feet south of Higgins Road — and the total cost is more than $9 million.
It’ll be wide enough for two-way pedestrian and bicyclist traffic, have two switchback ramps for accessibility, and feature a lookout facing the Cook County forest preserve.
The village will use tax increment financing district funds to pay for it all, but also has applied for grants that could come from federal, state or county agencies.
“We’ve always said we’ll pay for that. Because we feel that’s a public improvement, not a private business improvement,” Mayor Craig Johnson said Monday. “This gives us a true safe use of the bridge to get people across. It’s going to make a nice entryway into the community.”
The bridge will connect the Ned Brown Forest Preserve on the west side — popularly known as Busse Woods — with The Vue mixed-use redevelopment on the east. Foundation work for the planned $100 million transformation of the oldest shopping center in town started last fall, while the steel structure for the first new retail building started going up in recent weeks.
After acquiring and assembling properties including a since-demolished bowling alley, the village board a year ago sold the 10-acre corner property to Mount Prospect-based Wingspan Development Group for $17.5 million and granted the necessary zoning approvals, along with a promise of $24.5 million in TIF funds to help pay for the project.
The village established the special taxing district in 2022 — in which property taxes at a certain level began to be funneled to a village fund instead of other local governments — to help spur redevelopment at the aging corner.
The municipality has paid for and built three other pedestrian bridges above major thoroughfares to get pedestrians into, out of and through the 3,558-acre forest preserve: the two above Higgins were installed in 1995 and 2013, and one above Route 53/Interstate 290 was built in 2001.
“We pretty much have it covered now that anyone that wants to use Busse Woods, especially from our community, gets safely into the woods all the way around,” Johnson said.
Officials determined the Arlington Heights Road location to be ideal for a new bridge because of how many people park at the shopping center, then jaywalk across the busy street to get to the bike path. Johnson said he witnessed it first hand at the height of the pandemic, when the forest preserves were open, but on-site parking was limited.
“We want to find a safe way to get people into the woods on the trails,” Johnson said. “There’s an old saying: Where do you put a sidewalk? Where the path is worn out in the grass. That’s the same thing on this bridge. We watched it for years. Everyone seems to cross right there, so that’s why we’re putting the bridge right there.”
Construction is set to start in the spring and be done by April 2026, around the same time two new retail buildings open.