Towns ride crest of riverfront revival – Today, a healthy waterway is synonymous with economic well being, city planners and environmentalists say.

Today, a healthy waterway is synonymous with economic well being, city planners and environmentalists say.

Millions of dollars help redevelop shorelines to give residents easier access to waterways

By Amanda Vogt
Tribune staff reporter

Elgin has transformed a nondescript island in the middle of the Fox River into a public park. Waukegan wants to narrow a freeway and relocate railroad lines to restore the city’s Lake Michigan shoreline.

Some cities, including Montgomery on the Fox River, have recommended razing riverfront homes to create open space.

These suburban communities are among hundreds nationwide with riverfront or lakefront property spending millions to undo years of neglect and restore shorelines to public use to spur downtown revitalization.

"I don’t think there’s a town anywhere with some kind of waterfront that isn’t doing something to improve it," said Kathy Blaha, director of national programs for the Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based non-profit land conservation group.

While communities have always counted on waterways to stimulate economic growth, progress often has come at the cost of public access and the water’s ecological health. Today, a healthy waterway is synonymous with economic well being, city planners and environmentalists say.

"Restored waterfronts are major catalysts to economic revitalization and redevelopment," said Gerry Adelmann, executive director of Openlands Project, a Chicago-based conservation group.

Betsy Otto, senior director of watersheds for Washington-based American Rivers group, said data shows people who live, work and play near clean and accessible water are willing to pay more for the privilege.

A lot more, according to Rich Hitchcock, who designed Naperville’s nationally recognized 4-mile Riverwalk of walkways and parks along the DuPage River.

He has since designed riverwalks in West Dundee, Elgin, St. Charles, Batavia, Aurora and Waukesha to the tune of $33 million in investments.

"The Riverwalk is a 22-year overnight sensation," Hitchcock said of the 1981 Naperville project. Once real estate agents understood that more affluent clients coveted the exclusivity and accessibility of riverfront property, they started taking them by the Riverwalk, he said.

"Today, million-dollar homes are being built all along the Riverwalk," Hitchcock said.

Naperville’s success hasn’t been lost on surrounding communities.

Two months ago, Lake Zurich unveiled its newly built lakefront promenade–the highlight of the village’s downtown revitalization plan, said Mayor Jim Krischke. The 500-foot boardwalk along Illinois Highway 22 has been the site of weddings and cultural events since its debut Memorial Day weekend.

Next year, Lake Zurich officials hope to extend the promenade downtown to encourage people to shop, eat and play there, Krischke said.

A mix of residential and commercial real estate in downtown Montgomery hides the Fox River from public view, said Amy Furfori, director of community development. A redevelopment proposal calls for expansion of Montgomery Park north of a dam.

The plan would require the rapidly growing village to buy and raze 20 homes along the east side of River Street "to increase the amount of riverfront physically and visually accessible for all Montgomery residents and visitors to enjoy," according to a village reinvestment study.

The nation’s waterways were the first communities’ transportation corridors, working rivers that lost their appeal by the mid-19th Century, when railroads, and then highways, made water transportation obsolete. Their shores were overtaken by smokestack industries and scrap yards.

Riverfront cities became ghost towns when the manufacturing sector collapsed in the 1980s, officials said. At the same time, awareness of environmental issues had been growing, after the 1972 Clean Water Act.

Acres of industrial land lie abandoned in post-industrial cities like Waukegan, Elgin and Joliet at the same time there were mandates to clean up neglected and misused waterways.

Challenges remain in Waukegan, where plans to restore the lakefront and original habitat include former industrial brownfields that require environmental cleanup, said Noelle Kischer, the city’s senior planner.

Despite a 1,400-acre lakefront development plan, Waukegan’s downtown still will be separated from the lakefront by a bluff, an expressway, a rail yard and two sets of tracks, Kischer said.

The city has petitioned the Illinois Department of Transportation to reclassify the Amstutz Expressway as a state highway, Kischer said. That would allow the right of way on the east shoulder to be reduced by 120 feet and the Metra and Union Pacific tracks to be moved west to the roadside.

Developers are already anticipating the economic potential of a restored lakefront, said Russ Tomlin, Waukegan’s director of economic development. "We’re not fishing, yet [developers] are already coming to us with proposals."

Elgin, Waukegan’s Rust Belt sister to the southwest, is spending millions to make its banks along the Fox River more accessible. The city is constructing miles of pedestrian walkways and regrading and landscaping river embankments to allow people to get closer to the river.

"We finally woke up to the beauty of the river and its capacity to draw people into the area," said Ray Moller, Elgin’s director of economic development. On a recent trip to the Elgin shores of the Fox, John Grim, an avid kayaker from Bartlett, said he likes what he sees.

"This is great," Grim said about a boat launch at the water’s edge. "It gives people more places to connect with the river."

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

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