‘Tremendous potential’: ULI Chicago to present ideas for Naperville’s 5th Avenue area
Naperville’s 5th Avenue Metra train station sits north of the city’s downtown, the North Central College campus and Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church.
Another historic building, the former Kroehler factory, runs along the train tracks.
But the area around the commuter station is largely known for an abundance of blacktop parking.
“It’s really an important node for the city,” says Jon Talty, CEO of Chicago-based OKW Architects. “The idea of that train station deserves kind of some gravitas in terms of one getting off the train and feeling like they've arrived somewhere.”
Talty chairs an Urban Land Institute panel bringing fresh eyes to an underdeveloped area that has “tremendous potential.”
“It's not just an architect's perspective or a developer's perspective or an engineer's perspective or an attorney's perspective or a planner’s perspective,” he said. “It’s all of that combined, just as we would tackle a project, all being on the same team together.”
The difference is that it’s a multidisciplinary, third-party group — formally a technical assistance panel.
“We have no self-interest in any of this,” Talty said. “This is about understanding real estate, understanding marketplaces, understanding the city, the context, and then trying to come up with ideas that meet and exceed” community expectations.
ULI Chicago, with support from the city, convened real estate and development professionals from across the region over two days in June to identify redevelopment opportunities for city-owned properties along 5th Avenue near the Metra station.
ULI Chicago is set to present the panel’s findings and recommendations for potential land uses at a public meeting Sept. 10.
The presentation will show, philosophically and graphically, “how this thing could manifest itself,” Talty said.
The area was previously targeted for an ambitious mix of housing, offices, parking garages, retail, as well as health and wellness space and a public plaza. But the project never got off the drawing board, despite many iterations. The city announced in 2020 that the work on the project would cease, citing uncertainty from the pandemic, “namely related to commuter parking needs.”
The notion of a mixed-use kind of site development is realistic, Talty said. The types of housing and the density are up for conversation, he said.
“But I do think that it offers a great opportunity to kind of build on what is already a terrific urban environment in the city of Naperville,” he said. “It’s a unicorn in terms of the way the city lives and kind of all the amazing things it has to offer. And I think there's plenty of room for more.”
The panel has been tasked with addressing a list of questions approved by the city council. For instance, how can the redevelopment encourage regular transit users to “occupy any new residential units, thereby decreasing overall on-site parking demand?” Should parcels be offered separately or as one master lease/sale?
“It has to make sense from a vehicular perspective, because there's transit involved, and people have to get there,” Talty said. “But it would be an abject failure if it did not allow for a very pedestrian-friendly kind of environment.”
The city applied for the technical assistance services.
“With just over 14.5 acres of land owned or leased by the City, redevelopment of the 5th Avenue Study Area offers a distinctly unique opportunity to shape and further strengthen the City of Naperville for decades to come,” City Manager Doug Krieger noted in a 2024 application letter to the institute’s executive director.
Next month’s meeting in the city council chambers will include a Q&A session with those in attendance. ULI Chicago is expected to issue their final report — a tool for the city — by the end of the year.