A city project that spent years in development, but ultimately fell through, was brought back to the table earlier this week by a Naperville city councilman.
During the new business portion of Tuesday’s Naperville City Council meeting, Councilman Josh McBroom put a spotlight on the underdeveloped, city-owned land in Naperville. He suggested city staff look into “best use ideas” for the 13 acres of city-owned land near the 5th Avenue train station.
“What I would envision is that it would get noticed by the development community, ideas would come to us, and it would start this discussion, and there’d be plenty of time to, as we always do, engage with affected residents and the community as a whole,” McBroom said.
Following McBroom’s proposal, Councilman Ian Holzhauer said “the timing is good” to start discussing the redevelopment once again.
“When you ride in the train from Union Station, right, if you are not from the area and you were told that one of the communities along that line was the best community in America to raise a family… you would not guess the Naperville stop was that or even in the top five,” said Holzhauer.
Councilwoman Alison Longenbaugh served as mayor pro tem during Tuesday’s session, as Mayor Scott Wehrli was not in attendance.
Discussions on 5th Avenue project started in 2017
Talks on the 5th Avenue redevelopment project can be traced back to 2017 when the city tapped Minnesota-based real estate developer Ryan Companies to create a plan for the space around 5th Avenue.
The city then formed a 5th Avenue Steering Committee, and workshops were held for Ryan Companies to gather community input on the development. Primary concerns from residents included limiting density, increasing commuter parking spaces, and the location of the DuPage Children’s Museum (DCM).
In August 2018, Ryan Companies unveiled two proposals. Both concepts featured a five-story office building, a five-story apartment complex, and 1,000 new parking spots for retail and residential, but no new spots for Metra riders. The second option changed the location of the DCM.
The initial concepts from Ryan Companies infuriated some local residents, who questioned both proposals and criticized the real estate developer for not considering prevalent community input in either concept.
“One-third of the residents surveyed said they wanted a maximum of two stories. Another third, so over two-thirds of the people want a maximum of four-story buildings,” said Naperville resident Sandee Whited at the Aug. 22, 2018, 5th Avenue Initial Concept Presentation. “That’s 71% of residents who want a maximum of four-story buildings. I just thought I’d remind everyone that you’re ignoring what we wanted.”
Ryan Companies came back to the table in September 2019, combining the two initial proposals to create a baseline concept for the 5th Avenue redevelopment. It included a 20% increase in affordable housing, 253 more commuter parking spaces, and a 32,000-square-foot increase in green space.
The plan received positive recommendations from both the 5th Avenue Steering Committee and city staff but was ultimately voted down by the city council at its October 1, 2019 meeting. During that session, Councilman Patrick Kelly took issue with the baseline concept’s size, density, and height.
A new proposal from Ryan Companies in Feb. 2020 addressed some of the council’s concerns, lowering building height, and moving a planned plaza away from space adjacent to the train tracks.
Progress on the 5th Avenue redevelopment project fizzled out during the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and has been dormant for the past four years.
Council members desire a “transparent” process for 5th Avenue
At Tuesday’s meeting, Councilman Patrick Kelly agreed the area still needs redeveloping, but strongly recommended taking a different approach for any reopened discussions.
“It started a little bit backwards in terms of council not giving direction to staff regarding what exactly we wanted to see, so staff could go to developers and say, ‘Here is what we want you to bring to us,’” said Kelly. “I would say it should start with conversations with key stakeholders, whether that’s (the DuPage) Children’s Museum, NDP (Naperville Development Partnership), Chamber of Commerce, also should certainly include conversations…and I’m talking low-level, have coffees, and go meet with people face to face. Residents who live in the four key neighborhoods, commuters, engage with those people.”
When asked about the time commitment for a 5th Avenue redevelopment project, Director of the Transportation, Engineering, and Development (TED) Department Bill Novack said it would require a “significant amount of manpower” to plan.
“We spent thousands of hours on the prior proposal, and we were not the ones leading it, we had Ryan (Companies) that was leading it,” said Novack. “So it is a very large and controversial thing.”
Councilwoman Allison Longenbaugh said any new 5th Avenue redevelopment plan has to be “community-driven.”
“It is a very ugly train station, something needs to happen… the lack of a transparent process last time, and the fact that we as residents, we were involved, we did surveys, there were forums and everything, but none of that was taken into consideration and it was just kind of railroaded through, and so that’s what needs to change,” Longenbaugh said.
Longenbaugh then asked McBroom for specifics on what exactly he was asking city staff for in his initial statement.
“I’m not looking for the staff to give me renderings of what the staff would build at 5th Avenue or any other property,” said McBroom. “(I’m looking for) some kind of document… I don’t think it needs to be a 100-page report… ‘(We think) this property would be good for residential, we think this property would be good for commercial, or a combined mixed use.’”
Allison Laff, Deputy Director of Naperville’s Transportation, Engineering, and Development Department, said some clarification would be needed around what would define “best use” in a staff directive.
“Is best use what is most profitable? Is best use meeting a community need? Is best use what makes the nearby residents happy?” said Laff. “I think that’s the problem that we ran into last time, is that there was no definition.”
Councilwoman Jennifer Bruzan Taylor asked if staff could benefit from a public workshop on a 5th Avenue redevelopment, and City Manager Doug Krieger said it is “way too early” in the process to bring in residents again.
“Obviously if we proceed down this, we would need certainly several workshops to both bring in community input as well as continue dais discussion here with the formulation of our goals,” said Krieger. “I would look at, a two-month time frame, where we certainly aren’t gonna be bringing back any renderings, but come up with some options for paths that the city council could take to move this forward.”
Eventually, McBroom proposed a motion for city staff to “give some guidance, a roadmap on steps on how we as council could possibly do this correctly, and at a high level, some ideas for best uses on these properties.”
The dais took a straw poll vote, and five of the eight council members present on the dais supported the motion.
“We have a lot of ideas, I mean seriously, we’ve got tons of ideas,” said Novack. “It’s a commitment, and if it’s kept a very, very high level, kept brief, and get some thinking, and get some commitment and discussion towards goals, we can put something together,” said Novack.
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