When Naperville City Council voted in October to deny Ryan Companies’ baseline concept for the 5th Avenue Redevelopment Project, it put the future of the 13.1-acre site on hold.
The Public Weighs In
At their most recent meeting, city staff presented six options for what to do next. More than 30 public speakers also weighed in on the issue.
“I think it’s really important that the direction that you give as councilmembers is to put some goals in front of the steering committee so that they can then assess whatever is come up with about how it does in fact meet those goals,” said Naperville resident Kathy Benson.
Council Opts for Workshop
Most speakers endorsed either option three, a city council workshop to define goals for the project, or option four, incorporating the discussion into citywide priorities in early 2020. Council seemed to agree and eventually settled on the workshop.
“If we’re going to do that, I would hope that we continue to have these conversations with these neighbors – that neighbors continue to have conversations amongst themselves so that we don’t show up at a workshop in two moths or a month, whenever it might be, and just sort of flounder about and see who likes what of this part of the project,” said Councilman Patrick Kelly.
Moving Forward
Though the project has been contentious at times since developer Ryan Companies first began public outreach two years ago, multiple councilmembers said they were pleased by the amount of people who do want the project to move forward.
“I was very encouraged tonight by the majority of everyone still wanting to continue this and [go] down this path and figure it out,” said Councilman Paul Hinterlong. “There’s going to be a lot of work to be done to get there but from what I heard tonight, it sounds like everyone’s prepared to roll up their sleeves and get there.”
The council workshop will likely be scheduled for January of 2020.
Naperville News 17’s Casey Krajewski reports.
