Riverside’s historic water works complex in Centennial Park will undergo a sweeping transformation in 2007, thanks in large part to a $336,000 grant from the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program. The Village of Riverside, which will be required to match 20 percent of that total, will chip in $84,000 for the improvements.
When complete, Centennial Park itself will have undergone a complete landscape renovation, including new plantings and walkways. The service road that cuts through the park will be removed, and the recently restored water tower will be lit at night.
Meanwhile, East Avenue and the portion of Pine Avenue that fronts Centennial Park will be repaved so that the entire area, from the train depot on the north side of the railroad tracks to the northern end of Centennial Park, will meld into a more formal central town square.
“The whole purpose is to reestablish the relationship between Centennial Park and the train station,” said Riverside Public Works Director Michael Hullihan, who applied for the grant in December 2005. The grant application received the support of State Rep. Robert Molaro (D-21st), whose district includes most of Brookfield and Riverside east of Woodside Avenue and south of 31st Street.
Hullihan said that the connection between the historic water works complex and the train depot was a close one historically. The train facilities at one time included a rail yard (complete with a roundhouse and coal yard) in the area now occupied by the Riverside Swim Club.
“On the other side of the tracks was the water works, which allowed the village to grow,” Hullihan said. “They were always interconnected, but over the years they lost that relationship.”
The improvements to Centennial Park will link the two areas visually and physically, Hullihan added. Sidewalks in Centennial Park that previously linked water works buildings, will be torn up in favor of ones that will help guide pedestrian traffic through the park to and from the train depot and to businesses along East Avenue.
The asphalt that now covers East and Pine avenues will be replaced with either a brick or some other textured concrete pavement that will link the entire area.
“It will be more defined by the pavement as a central gathering area,” Hullihan said.
Earlier this spring, the village replanted the area around the former well house that serves as the Riverside Historical Museum and cut down the pine tree used for the village Christmas tree. That was the beginning of an effort to unclutter the park visually and emphasize native plant species. The grant money will help pay for additional landscaping around the former water tower pump house, which is attached to the water tower’s southeast face, and the southwest well house, which will be turned into an exhibit space for the historical museum.
The grant will also provide for lighting the tower. Prior to the restoration the tower was lit by mercury vapor lights. Since the restoration has been completed, however, the park and tower have been completely dark at night. New incandescent lighting will not only “do justice to the new color scheme” of the tower, but “add to [Centennial Park’s] usability for evening events,” according to Hullihan.
While Hullihan included a conceptual plan for improvements with the grant application, he said there is currently no formal design and that the village is in negotiations with two firms?”Antunovich Associates, which led the water tower restoration effort, and James J. Benes & Associates, the village’s street design engineer?”to provide the design and engineering for the improvements. Construction will be bid competitively.
“I’m hoping to get design approval over the winter and look for a spring construction start,” Hullihan said. “What may be more of a challenge is getting the public and village board consensus on what we want it to look like.”
Before any design is approved, it will have to wend its way through several village commissions, including the Preservation, Landscape Advisory and Historical commissions.