Tanner Trails awaits final touches

Although the company building the Tanner Trails subdivision in North Aurora may have declared bankruptcy, the subdivision will still see some finishing touches this year, village officials said Monday.

Next week, the village board is set to approve a $442,000 contract with Tri-County Excavation & Construction Inc. which would improve shore lines around ponds, finish planting trees and do other park maintenance in the large subdivision.

Village Engineer Jim Bibby said the subdivision is about 90 to 95 percent complete and perfectly safe. However, the project would improve aesthetics and future maintenance headaches.

"We're anxious to get started on the work and close out all public improvements by the end of 2008," Bibby said.

The project would not include finishing work on the largest lake, located immediately north of Tanner Road, because that work falls under Kane County's jurisdiction, Bibby said.

If approved, this would be the first of three finishing projects the village will oversee for the subdivision, using the money collected from a letter of credit with Indy Mac Bank after developer Neumann L.O.C. declared bankruptcy last year. The money is being held at Chicago Title and Trust, Village Administrator Sue McLaughlin said.

The village collected what it believed the projects would cost -- $1.8 million -- in order to finish the public lands in Tanner Trails, McLaughlin said. She said the village could collect about $300,000 more if it needed to.

Bibby said other projects will include putting the final touches on about one-third of the subdivision's streets, which the developer never finished. He said some surface work on roads, as well as finishing sidewalks and parkways, would be part of future projects.

If bids for the next two portions of the project are similarly under engineers' estimates, the projects should all be completed, McLaughlin said. The village had estimated the pond work to run about $525,000.