After nearly two years of delays and negotiations with area residents, the Naperville Park District is gearing up to take its plans for the massive Frontier Park sports complex to the City Council.
The Park Board recently approved design plans for the 131-acre parcel of former farmland that stretches between Illinois Highway 59 and Book Road south of 95th Street and Neuqua Valley High School. City leaders are expected to consider the annexation agreement for the sports park in May.
Plans for the park include 10 soccer fields, eight softball fields, four baseball fields, basketball courts, sand volleyball courts, a skateboard park and in-line skate rinks.
Discussions also are under way between Park District officials and the Naperville Public Libraries to determine the feasibility of building a third library on a northern strip of the parkland.
The city-mandated review of the parcel, which is 9 to 13 acres depending on the uses, could accommodate either the library or some sort of recreation center in the future.
City leaders had refused to review the annexation of Frontier Park until Park District officials ironed out differences with residents bordering the park.
Homeowners from Ashbury and Wheatland South subdivisions voiced concerns about traffic and lighting, and long delays frustrated some residents who learned of the park proposal in May 1998 and waited months for details and reassurances that their neighborhoods would be protected.
After the park plan had stalled for months, Park District officials last August formed an advisory committee of staff, residents from the neighboring subdivisions and area athletic associations to weigh objections to the proposal.
But a breakthrough did not occur until late last year when the Park District made a large concession and agreed not to light the 10 soccer fields that border homes along the south side of the park.
“The annexation agreement will state that there will be no sport lighting on the soccer fields or the east end of the park,” said Bob Collins, a planner for the Park District.
To further ease noise and congestion on the east end of the park, district officials altered the design to add a miniature park with a playground, picnic area and a grove of trees. The skate park and in-line skate rinks, originally planned for that area, were relocated north of the baseball fields.
“The mini-park or park-within-a-park concept was something I came up with and was a great way to incorporate some more parklike features in something that was really an intensive athletic-like facility. That improved the design of the park on that end to reduce parking and programming needs,” Collins said.
Other modifications also were made to the park design to address traffic concerns. Homeowners in the Ashbury subdivision had feared park users would increase congestion on Conan Doyle Road, which is aligned with the east entrance to Frontier Park.
Park District officials agreed to isolate the parking lot at Book to reduce the amount of traffic there and restrict internal access to the park from the east side, Collins said.
If the City Council grants the annexation, construction would begin on the central parking lot and the access road to Illinois Highway 59 so that the soccer fields would be usable this fall to help relieve some of the shortage of fields in the city, Collins said.
An 8-foot wooden fence and a berm on the east end also would be constructed to further shield nearby residents, he said.
The softball and baseball fields would be built next spring, but they may not be available for use until 2002, depending on how fast the turf grows, Collins said.
In the next five years, Park District officials hope to have a majority of the park completed.
