When Naperville City Council voted down Ryan Companies’ Baseline Concept in October, the future of the development was unclear.
New 5th Avenue Concept
Now, Ryan has come back to the table with a new 5th Avenue concept addressing council’s concerns.
“One of the things we’re all concerned about is the general height and density, which came down,” said Thom Higgins, a member of the 5th Avenue Steering Committee.
Concept Changes
The previous concept included a maximum height of 83 feet and 405 total residential units. This concept lowers that max height to 70 feet and drops the number of units to 292.
Both concepts include about 70 affordable housing units, though the decrease in total units makes the new concept 24% affordable housing.
“To me that’s a huge win for the city,” said Councilman Patrick Kelly. “That’s an issue that we’ve heard loud and clear our city needs to deal with and our residents want us to deal with.”
City council previously set a goal for 20% of the development’s housing to be affordable.
Other issues included safety concerns having a plaza located next to the train tracks. That plaza has been moved to the corner of 5th Avenue and Washington Street.
More work to be done
Though Higgins and Kelly said most of their concerns were addressed in the latest proposal, there is still more work to do.
“I think a major piece that we still have yet to hear about are the financials. So I think and hope that we’re getting close to having a design that a lot of people would be happy with but we really haven’t started that financial conversation yet about who would pay for what and what sort of debt the city might be taking on with a project of this size.”
Formal Presentation
A February 15th meeting is scheduled for Ryan to formally present their concept to the steering committee at 10:30 in Meeting Room B of the Municipal Center.
Ryan Companies’ latest concept is available for the public to view on the city’s website.
Naperville News 17’s Casey Krajewski reports.
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