New 'gateway' into Rosemont from O'Hare opens today
A new four-lane roadway extension being heralded as a “gateway” to Rosemont from O'Hare International Airport opens Monday.
The $18 million road project extends Balmoral Avenue west over Mannheim Road, under O'Hare's “people mover” train line, and connects with Bessie Coleman Drive near the international terminal.
The connection is 23 years in the making, first envisioned when then-Rosemont Mayor Donald Stephens sought an easier way for O'Hare travelers to get to a potential casino and other redevelopment projects being contemplated at the time.
The casino in Rosemont never happened — but a lot of other development did, with officials today promising more to come.
Mayor Brad Stephens, the former mayor's son, said the Balmoral extension will serve as an example of how “transportation breeds development.”
The roadway will lead to the MB Financial Park entertainment district, the Rosemont Theatre, the Fashion Outlets of Chicago mall, Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, hotels and restaurants.
It'll also serve as a connection to a new minor league baseball stadium located north of Balmoral, expected to open in 2018, and a 16-acre mixed-use development south of Balmoral scheduled to open in 2017.
“This is a game changer,” Stephens said of the new road. “This is big time. We're happy it's finally done.”
Rosemont paid for the design engineering work, while the Chicago Department of Aviation, Chicago Department of Transportation and Illinois Department of Transportation paid construction costs.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for 10 a.m. Monday with representatives of those agencies. The new extension is expected to open shortly thereafter.
“Obviously we're very grateful for the state and city for funding the majority of it, but we had to design it and show them how it works,” Stephens said. “I think at the end of the day, they're going to realize how mutually beneficial it is to everyone.”
More and more drivers are using Balmoral Avenue since the opening of a Tri-State Tollway exit ramp in 2011. The village and IDOT split the $18 million cost to design and build the exit.
Mark Wrzeszcz, a senior project manager with Christopher B. Burke Engineering, which contracts with Rosemont, said a formal agreement was put in place in the late 1990s among the governmental agencies involved in the Balmoral extension project, but funding dried up, delaying the project from getting off the ground until just two years ago.
The opening of the Balmoral extension comes just as work is expected to wrap up soon on a $59 million widening of Mannheim Road. Reconstruction of Mannheim from Irving Park Road to Interstate 190 is expected to be complete by mid-December, and the segment from Interstate 190 to Higgins Road should be complete by the beginning of next year, Wrzeszcz said.
That project also includes an underpass that will allow access from southbound Mannheim to eastbound Balmoral.