Work ready to begin at Northside Park
After spending more than two decades on the drawing board, the renovation of Wheaton's Northside Park is set to begin at the end of the month.
E.P. Doyle and Son, the construction company Wheaton Park District hired to do the first phase of improvements, is expected to start work Sept. 29. An official groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 6 p.m. Oct. 1.
With three construction stages planned over multiple years, the total project will address flooding, enhance recreation programs and change the landscape of the 70-acre park near Prairie Avenue and Main Street.
"It's way, way long overdue," said Ray Morrill, the park board's vice president. "And while it's going to take several years to complete, I think the community is going to be really pleased with the final result."
As part of its piece of the project, Wheaton-based E.P. Doyle will rebuild the deteriorating dam on the south end of the park by the warming shelter.
Rob Sperl, park district director of planning, said crews also will add native plants along the edges of the lagoon to fix erosion. In addition, almost all of the bridges will be replaced, two new bridges will be constructed, new paths will be installed and the height of the sled hill will be increased.
That work is expected to be completed by next August. Until that time, a substantial portion of the park will be unusable because of the construction and related traffic. Park district programs, camps and sports programs will be relocated as necessary, officials said.
However, the stormwater upgrades will pave the way for Wheaton to address flooding in the area.
The city's Main Street project, which includes installing a bridge where a culvert now stands near the intersection of Main and Cole Avenue, is expected to start sometime next year.
The larger opening will allow more water to flow beneath Main Street and into the park.
"It's not going to cure every rainfall event," said Paul Redman, the city's director of engineering. "Main Street will still flood. But it will flood in a more extreme event than it used to."
Mayor Michael Gresk said simply reducing the frequency of Main Street floods will be a welcome change.
"It's a project that we have been waiting for for a very long time," Gresk said. "It will mitigate the flooding to a large extent on the north side of town, particularly along Main Street, which floods two or three times a year."
As for the second phase of the Northside project, a company will be hired sometime next year to start the multiyear process of dredging the lagoon and restoring its original depth of five to 10 feet.
Making all the improvements to the park is projected to cost up to $8 million. But the park district has already seen some savings. E.P. Doyle and Son's roughly $2.4 million bid was more than $1.1 million less than the engineer's estimate.