The Washington Streetscape project in downtown Naperville is nearing completion.
Katie Wood, Interim Executive Director of the Downtown Naperville Alliance spoke with Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli and the Director of Transportation, Engineering and Development Bill Novack about the project.
What to expect on Washington Street in the next few weeks
Novack said in this final push to the finish, Washington Street will be bustling with workers.
“Expect a lot of people working down here,” said Novack. “In the next week, we will be preparing to put the surface course of pavement down on Washington Street. Right now, we’re preparing the southeast corner of Chicago and Washington. And then the week after Halloween, we will be putting the surface course of pavement down on the roadway.”
While crews work on this final protective layer of the road, Novack cautions drivers to slow down as they approach the bumps at each end of the road.
“And then the week after that will be cleaning up everything else,” continued Novack. “We have the sidewalks done. We just have to get the little grates around the planters, get the trees in, and basically start working on (our) punch list and clean up.”
Why the Washington streetscape project happened when it did
The renovations on Washington Street between Chicago and Benton avenues kicked off in February of 2024, as the second phase of the city’s Downtown Streetscapes Improvements initiative.
Fixes involved complete road rehab, utility work, and streetscape modernization, all of which were critical, according to Mayor Wehrli.
“The number one priority in any community should be public safety,” said Wehrli. “And when you look at the failing infrastructure that we had with our Washington Street Bridge, which was almost 100 years old, (and) we had 100-year-old water pipes that were subject to catastrophic failures that would certainly have affected all of our restaurants and stores and downtown Naperville.”
City officials said it seemed appropriate to time out the streetscape fixes with another large project that needed attention.
“When we knew the Washington Street Bridge would take two years to reconstruct,” said Novack, “we saw an opportunity to do all the infrastructure improvements in this area. So we sat down with our other departments and figured out what would need to be done in the next three to five years. We identified a 100-year-old water main that needed to be replaced. We knew we would have to resurface the roadway, and we had other utilities and needed stuff to be done. So we looked at it as a great opportunity to get this all done, while Washington Street was down to one lane in each direction.”
The Washington Street Bridge is expected to be completed in 2025.
