Pedestrian bridge part of Schaumburg plan for North Meacham Road
A pedestrian bridge over Meacham Road between Thoreau Drive and Progress Parkway in Schaumburg is now officially part of the village's plan to unite major economic redevelopment projects along the thoroughfare.
The bridge is part of a comprehensive $27 million North Meacham Road Corridor Plan unanimously recommended by the village's transportation committee earlier this month.
The plan was scheduled to go before the full village board Tuesday, but that meeting has been postponed.
A rendering depicting the re-imagined Meacham Road has been created, but Schaumburg Transportation Director Karyn Robles emphasized that the plans remain at an early conceptual stage.
Many questions remain, including the timing of the pedestrian bridge's construction and whether it would directly connect to new buildings on either side of Meacham, Robles said.
The Veridian development on the former Motorola Solutions campus on the west side of Meacham is well underway, while the village is reviewing concepts for a proposed entertainment district on the east side, north of the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center.
"We want to use Meacham Road to unify those two sides, and this plan really does that," said Village Trustee Brian Bieschke, who chairs the transportation committee. "The transportation committee felt very strongly that it was a solid plan."
In addition to the pedestrian bridge, the plan envisions aesthetic improvements to both sides of Meacham, including signs to assist in the branding of the area as "90 North."
Last month, the village board expressed support for funding the burial of power lines along the same stretch of Meacham.
That cost and a feasibility study for the pedestrian bridge are proposed for the village's next annual budget, to be approved next month. The rest of the Meacham Road Corridor Plan is hoped to be added to the five-year capital improvement plan that will be adopted toward the end of the year.
All public improvements are expected to be funded by the area's tax increment financing district, in which property taxes above a certain point are kept from local governments for 23 years and funneled into development.
The estimated costs are $1.25 million for gateways and signs, $725,000 for architectural and cultural components, $13.5 million for transportation components, $8.6 million for pedestrian and aesthetic components, and $3 million for other project costs, such as design and construction management.