Construction is coming this summer as we build upon downtown Oswego’ as a shopping and dining destination. Here’s what you need to know:
- Residents said they wanted more dining options and a livelier downtown. In resident surveys over the past several years, residents said they left town to find unique independent dining options. The Village of Oswego responded with a downtown-first strategy to enhance our charming downtown and give residents more dining options, additional retail, and more public parking, plus amenities to make downtown an even better place to gather with friends and neighbors.
- The old Alexander Lumberyard will soon be The Reserve at Hudson Crossing. When complete, the Reserve at Hudson Crossing will include:
-Two buildings, a southern O-shaped building on the Alexander Lumberyard site and a northern L-shaped building on the adjacent property
-280 luxury apartments These will be luxury apartments and will be built condo-ready.
-10,000 square feet of retail space along Washington Street, including 3,000 square feet for a sit-down independent restaurant with outdoor seating. The plan includes at least one restaurant, probably more.
-Public parking There will be approximately 558 spaces: 460 inside two garages and 98 on street. Shoppers and diners will be able to use the spaces during the day for free. Overnight parking will require a permit and will be available to downtown residents only. Even if every resident were parked at the same time, there would still be about 200 spaces open for the public.
-Infrastructure improvements including new sewer, water main, street lighting, buried utility lines and the complete reconstruction of surrounding portions of Jackson, Harrison and Adams Streets - Block 11 is the downtown block bounded by Main, Washington, Adams and Van Buren Streets. When complete, Block 11 will include:
-A Mexican restaurant featuring lots of outdoor seating, from the team behind Naperville-based Potter’s Place, at 63 W. Washington (the site of the white house that once held the Village’s community development department).
-A mixed-use building with first-floor restaurant and retail and two stories of offices at 113 Main Street (the site of the former Village Hall).
-A pedestrian-friendly alley-promenade
-24 parking spaces with 21 in a new parking lot and three new on-street spaces
-Infrastructure improvements including water main and storm sewer, a shared trash compactor and other amenities to support restaurant development. - Some of our events will be moving temporarily to avoid construction dust and accommodate parking. Wine on the Fox (May 4-5) will be held on the square at Village Hall this year. There’s no playground, but this year’s event will feature extra amenities for attendees and for children in particular to stay entertained. Brew at the Bridge (Sept. 21) will be at Prairie Point Park. Christmas Walk will be held in downtown as usual, and we’ll have plenty of shuttles to move people from off-site parking at OHS to Main Street festivities. Get event information here at GoOswego.org!
- Some streets will be closed. Major thoroughfares like Washington Street (Route 34) will be unaffected. The following streets, sidewalks and entrances will be closed Or ALTERED for all or some of the construction period:
-Adams Street from the Waubonsee Creek bridge to Washington Street, and from Washington to Van Buren Street
-Jackson Street from Harrison Street to Adams Street
-Harrison Street from Jackson Street to Washington Street
-The north sidewalk along Washington Street from Harrison to Adams Street
-Hudson Crossing Park will be open but will have access on foot only from the Fox River Trail, the Veterans Walk, and the entrance at the corner of Harrison and Washington. Park visitors will have to park in the lot at the southwest corner of Harrison and Washington Streets and cross Washington Street. - The Village has contributed the following funding to each of these projects:
For The Reserve at Hudson Crossing: This project will cost $69 million, of which Shodeen will pay $46 million for the retail and residential units and the Village will bond $16 million for the parking deck, which will be Village-owned. Shodeen will repay that $16 million bond from property taxes. The Village also paid $1.5 million for the land, will fund $4.5 million in Village-owned street and infrastructure improvements and will grant Shodeen $900,000 in façade improvement funds for specific details the Village requested in the façade of the buildings. For Block 11: The Village will convey land valued at $90,000 for the Mexican restaurant and land valued at $60,000 for the mixed-use building, for $10 each. The Village will also spend $1.2 million on necessary infrastructure upgrades and will waive some permit fees. - The developers are putting in a lot more than the Village. In addition to the $46 million to build the project, Shodeen will continue to pay taxes on the value of the undeveloped land and will make additional contributions to the school district and the library. Shodeen will pay new student fees to the school district and new user fees to the library throughout the development. Twenty years from now, Shodeen will be paying nearly $2 million annually in property taxes. The developers building on Block 11 will collectively invest more than $4.2 million in their buildings in our downtown.
- Oswego’s schools and libraries will get additional funding. The TIF District freezes the amount of money all our area taxing bodies will receive on the old Alexander lumberyard and developing Block 11 properties until 2039. But developers will pay to the school district at least $6,000 per new student annually who moves into the buildings, fully covering their educational costs. They’ll also pay a per-user fee to the library. When the TIF expires, Shodeen and the Block 11 developers will pay more than $2 million a year in property taxes, about $1.6 million of which will go to the schools every year. (By comparison, in 2014, the property owners only paid $20,000 in taxes.)
- Downtown Oswego will be open for business. Our downtown retailers will remain open and easily accessible throughout construction. There are no closures or parking restrictions expected for Main Street, which will be the best access point for The Prom Shoppe and Oswego Brewing Co.
- You can get up-to-date information the following ways:
- Email: Sign up on our email list. We’ll send up-to-date information about street closures and other news, and announce meetings, surveys, and other ways to get more information. Just fill out our contact form here:
https://gooswego.org/contact/ - Social Media: Follow the Village of Oswego on Facebook @VillageOfOswegoIL and Twitter @OswegoIL60543. Construction information will use #BuildingOswego
- Online: Check back at GoOswego.org/coming-soon. We’ll be posting updated information here throughout construction.
