Parking deck plan for Naperville’s Nichols Library needs to be redone
Naperville will need to start from scratch on design plans for a new parking deck at Nichols Library, a process that could cost $1.8 million, according to a city manager’s memo.
The revelation comes as the city gears up for budget season, where the council will discuss if it wants to move forward with building a new deck, a project that has been on-and-off the table for nearly two decades.
“Definitely by December, I think we’ll know whether we’re going to be moving forward with the design phase,” said Andy Hynes, city engineer and deputy director of Naperville’s Transportation, Engineering and Development department.
Recently, there has been a renewed push for the Nichols Library parking deck project, with support from the Downtown Naperville Alliance, the Downtown Advisory Committee and the Naperville Public Library Board.
Naperville’s 2026 community survey results also suggested some interest in improving downtown parking among residents, with four in 10 survey respondents rated downtown Naperville parking as being “fair” or “poor.”
Between 2006 and 2008, the city undertook a design process for a possible new parking facility at the 200 W. Jefferson Ave. library.
An architecture firm drafted design plans for the facility, which included a multilevel structure that would have increased parking capacity from 130 to 500 spaces. It called for four levels, though only three would have been visible from Jefferson Avenue.
“We had hoped the old plans could just more or less be updated and we could use those as a basis for going forward to construction, but the plans are 20 years old,” Hynes said.
Since then, building codes have been updated multiple times and are not reflected in the old plans.
“Further, the lead consulting firm that prepared those plans, they don’t have the resources to just update the plans themselves,” he said. “So we’re really at the point where we probably have to go out and select a new consulting team to do those plans and they essentially have to start from scratch.”
Hynes said he was not greatly surprised by the news.
“I was surprised that the lead firm wasn’t going to be able to help us,” he said. “Since it’s been 20 years, I wasn’t that surprised there were some significant changes, but my initial thought was going to be more of like an update than a full redesign.”
The approximate construction cost for the final design was estimated at $18.9 million in 2007. In today’s dollars, the construction cost for a similar structure is estimated at $30 million to $36 million, the memo said.
Redesigning the deck is estimated at $1.8 million because that’s about 6% of the construction cost, the yardstick by which such numbers are typically determined.
“We’ll have to go through the process of selecting a consultant and negotiating a fee … so we don’t know what the final cost (for a redesign) would be,” Hynes said.
While the city needs to start over, the old plans still provide some value as a starting point. Hynes said there may be some questions about whether the city should stick with adding 370 parking spots or if that number should be altered.
“I don’t know whether it’ll change or not. That’ll be up for discussion,” he said.
Other details, including how long it will take the city to design a new plan, also have yet to be determined, he said.
cstein@chicagotribune.com