A new parking deck in downtown Naperville? Library, business leaders revisit 500-space garage

Plans for a parking deck at the Nichols Library in downtown Naperville ended up on the proverbial shelf in the Great Recession.

Fast forward about 20 years, and the city’s downtown attracts an estimated 9.5 million visits a year. And with that growth has come parking woes.

“It’s the top issue we hear anecdotally from among our downtown visitors. There’s repeated frustration with, ‘I just can’t find available parking,’” said Katie Wood, executive director of the Downtown Naperville Alliance.

So downtown stakeholders have renewed discussion of a parking garage that would replace the surface lot on the north side of the Nichols Library and add hundreds of spaces to the downtown supply.

“We have a lot of new developments that are on the horizon that are going to be adding new visitors, potential new residents. It's going to even greater increase the demand that we already have,” Wood said.

The new deck would have 500 parking spaces with a net gain of 370 spaces over the existing 130 surface spaces.

The 2007 construction cost estimate for the Nichols Library parking deck project was $18.9 million, according to city staff. Inflating to today’s dollars, it could cost an estimated $32 million to $36 million.

However, officials will not be able to provide a refined estimate of cost until a new consultant is hired to update the original design to reflect current building codes and market conditions, city staff noted.

“It was really designed to fit harmoniously within the residential area around here, and also fit in with Nichols architecture,” Wood said.

The financing options have only been discussed on a conceptual level. The city does have a parking fund that receives funding from a downtown food and beverage tax. That dedicated fund supports the construction, maintenance and operation of downtown parking decks and lots.

A Nichols parking deck with roughly 500 spaces is part of a list of projects in the city’s 2026-30 Capital Improvement Program, with design engineering work currently targeted for 2027.

“Who's going to benefit? We know the library patrons, downtown patrons, the businesses, Riverwalk visitors, special events, anybody adjacently using the downtown,” Wood said during an informational presentation to the Naperville Public Library board.

Indeed, a significant milestone is approaching in 2031, and it’s actually a trifecta: the 200th anniversary of the city’s founding, the 100th anniversary of Centennial Beach and the 50th anniversary of the Riverwalk.

Wood said it would be “really nice to have a new parking deck” ready for that big celebration.

The downtown has the Chicago Avenue, Van Buren and Water Street public garages, plus the municipal center parking facility.

“From the west, it was always the thought of doing the Nichols parking deck,” Wood said.

There’s no fee to park anywhere in downtown Naperville. The downtown has roughly 3,500 public parking spaces, including the parking decks, surface lots and on-street parking. The total comes to about 3,800 spots “if you add the private spaces that allow us to use their lots to try to service these 9.5 million visits a year,” Wood said.

“We're constantly trying to work to optimize parking,” she said. “We have a downtown employee parking program. So every downtown business is supposed to purchase hang tags for their employees, and they're instructed to park in the upper levels of the parking decks to preserve prime spaces for consumers, for library patrons, for people coming in. It is a program we push all the time.”

A working group has been analyzing downtown parking. Along with Wood, Tom Castagnoli, the group’s chair, and property owner Steve Rubin were part of the presentation to the library board.