Photo by Marney Simon | Enterprise Staff
Street parking will be added to Des Plaines Street near the old fire station, which is currently being converted to restaurant/retail and residential space.
By Marney Simon | Enterprise Staff
Visitors heading to downtown Plainfield to shop or dine will soon have a few extra parking spaces at their disposal.
On June 19, the board approved a plan for additional parking for the Des Plaines Street parking project, and well as a new signage project for directional signage on Lockport Street/Route 126.
The additional parking was discussed by the board earlier this year, with trustees passing along suggestions to village staff.
The cost of the parking lot expansion is $847,453, slightly below the village engineer’s estimate of $912,308.
“The project generally will add about 33 parking spaces to the existing Des Plaines parking lot downtown, and some storm water management for the entire parking area and some improvements to the existing lot,” said Randall Jessen, Superintendent of Public Improvements. “Staff has been working with other departments and the residents in that area to address their concerns as far as landscaping, screening, and other concerns that they had brought up.”
Earlier this spring, one resident near the parking lot addressed the board, expressing concerns about proximity to her home. Plans to extend the parking lot to an entrance along Route 126 have since been scrapped, for now.
Staff said the storm water collection and maintenance were also one of the top priorities for the downtown area.
“The underground storm water storage system, we’ve reached the threshold for the surface, and in order to mitigate storm water issues, we had to go underground about six feet deep,” Jessen said. “It goes underground, and it… accommodates the existing lot. So, that’s a significant component.”
Village Administrator Brian Murphy noted that storm water management is one of the contributing factors to the high cost of the project.
“It’s a substantive cost, there’s no question about it,” Murphy told the board. “Storm water is a very sensitive subject in the community. We ask a lot of our developers and our business owners to do things right, and it’s important that we live by our own requirements. We’ve reached that threshold, and it is a very costly endeavor to do that, but it shows the community that we’re living by our own rules, and shows the community that we take storm water [seriously].”
The village underwent a downtown parking study last fall, identifying available parking and areas where more parking was needed. While a parking garage was one of several options explored following that study, the village opted to add to its current parking lots.
Included in the project is a street scape improvement in front of the old fire station on Des Plaines street, which is currently in the process of being converted to retail/restaurant space on the lower level and residential space on the upper level. That improvement will create parallel parking in front of the fire house, with landscaping and lighting.
Directional LED-backlit signage directing trucks clear of downtown will be installed where Route 126 veers off Lockport Street headed into the historic downtown area.
The board approved the improvements by a 4-2 vote, with Trustees Edward O’Rourke and Brian Wojowski voting no. Both O’Rourke and Wojowski noted that they’d like to see the costs reduced.
The project will be funded within the village’s downtown tax increment financing (TIF) fund. The village has dedicated $1.5 million in TIF funds for capital projects this year. Additional projects, set to come before the board for approval later this year, are expected to total around $300,000.
The parking improvements will be completed by D. Construction of Coal City.