The Village of Riverside is moving forward with efforts to go green and better manage stormwater by agreeing to repave one of its parking lots by the end of the year.
At its Feb. 1 meeting, the Riverside Board of Trustees entered into an intergovernmental agreement with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. The organization, which promised to reimburse the village for just less than 60% of the cost of the project up to a cap of $256,000, authorized its own involvement in the agreement last June as part of its Green Infrastructure Partnership program.
With the money, Riverside will bring permeable pavement to Village Lot 8, located behind the buildings at 12-40 East Quincy Street, immediately south of the Metra train tracks that bisect the village. Riverside will be responsible for designing, constructing, and operating the green parking lot, as well as maintaining it for at least 25 years after construction is complete.
At a board meeting last July, Riverside partnered with Christopher B. Burke Engineering, a firm based in Rosemont, for $71,000 worth of design and construction services for the project. At the same meeting, village officials estimated the project’s total cost at about $513,000.
Permeable pavement is designed to promote the absorption of rainwater and snowmelt into the ground beneath it. By allowing water to absorb directly into the earth, permeable pavement reduces the amount of water that flows into sewers through storm drains or nearby bodies of water like the Des Plaines River, reducing the risk of flooding during heavy rain or after significant snowfall. According to the agreement, Village Lot 8’s roughly 14,000 square feet of permeable pavement will be able to capture at least 72,400 gallons of stormwater at a time.
The MWRDGC will reimburse Riverside for construction costs in four equal chunks of $64,000, which will be disbursed one-by-one when construction reaches the 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% complete milestones. The village must submit all reimbursement invoices by Dec. 31, meaning construction must finish before the end of the year or Riverside will risk having to pay out-of-pocket or acquire additional funding to cover the MWRDGC’s portion.
Once the project is complete, Village Lot 8 will become Riverside’s third green parking lot. In 2018, Riverside and the MWRDGC entered into a similar agreement to update the village’s main commuter lot, at the intersection of Barrypoint Road and Bloomingbank Road, with permeable pavement; work on the lot finished in 2019. The village’s first green parking lot, at 61-63 East Burlington Street, was constructed in 2012.
