In the early 1990s, after leaving his job at the Downers Grove Village Hall, Brian Pabst would drive through the downtown.
“It was a ghost town,” he recalled. “There was no pedestrian traffic and we could have practically rolled up the sidewalks. There was nothing there for consumers.”
Today, Pabst is delighted to see people roaming the sidewalks in the evening, mostly to visit the restaurants that have opened in the last few years.
“It’s great to see people utilizing our downtown center,” said Pabst, the village’s redevelopment director. “It’s great to see people on the streets.”
The town is one of many Chicago suburbs working to rejuvenate its older downtown, a task complicated by everything from major construction that disrupts local businesses to competition from nearby regional shopping centers.
“What we’re trying to do is give our downtown a fresh look,” said Bob Shoger, the central business district infrastructure manager for the village. “That’s a major task.”
Work on the central business district began in the mid-1990s.
“The primary reason for redeveloping the downtown was that the merchants had come to the Village Council and had asked about creating a master plan for the downtown,” said Shoger.
In 1997, village officials approved a redevelopment plan, one that would make the downtown “economically viable,” said Alice Ulmer, assistant director of the village’s Economic Development Commission and a member of its Downtown Management Board. “We knew what we needed was a good mix of businesses and a lot of aesthetic touches.”
“The village was founded in 1832 and downtown was one of the first areas to be developed,” said Shoger. “The downtown business district is therefore the oldest business district in the community. If there is a theme to our plans, it’s that we’re trying to maintain the character of the downtown.”
Village officials also hope to add a residential element. “We feel that the more people we have interacting with the downtown, the healthier it will be,” said Pabst.
There has been some success on the residential front. Construction began in May on the Morningside Square Condominiums, a 40-unit, five-story project on Main Street just south of Maple Avenue. Residents of the condos, which are being marketed to empty-nesters, should begin occupancy in the summer of 2001.
Village officials also want to make the downtown a cultural attraction.
“This is a trend that we’ve seen all over America,” said Ulmer. “In the 1980s, there was a lot of investment in community and regional centers, and the downtowns were somewhat left by the wayside.
“In the mid-1990s, municipal officials asked, `How can we bring the people back to the downtowns?’ ” said Ulmer. “We realized that our downtowns are a cultural aspect to our community and they are places where people come together for events.”
Officials also wanted to play up the fact that the downtown is on the Metra Burlington Northern Santa Fe line. “It’s an asset that the train station is right there–we have over 2,000 commuters at that train station on a daily basis,” said Ulmer.
Downers Grove officials quickly realized, however, that the downtown also needed major infrastructure work.
“Our water mains are more than 100 years old and our sanitary sewer lines are about 100 years old,” said Shoger. “Our downtown used to flood during heavy rains.
“When we first came up with our downtown plan, the intent was to do some streetscaping, such as replacing sidewalks and planting trees,” he added. “But what was evident was that it was not worth replacing streets and sidewalks without first replacing the infrastructure underneath.”
The village created a four-phase plan to update the aging infrastructure, crafted to minimize the disruption to existing businesses during construction. The work started in fall 1998, with the replacement of sewer lines and water mains along Warren Avenue between Main and Washington Streets. Last year, work moved to Main Street. This year, the focus is on Curtis and Forest Streets. Next year’s work will take place along Main and Washington Streets.
The village also is replacing standard street lights with ornamental lights and planting trees. In the meantime, there also has been reinvestment from the private side, said Shoger.
“There have been a number of buildings that changed hands and the new owners have redone the faces of the buildings and have invested in the properties to give them a fresh new look,” he said.
That investment has lured new businesses. Ulmer reported there are now more than 300 businesses in the downtown–about 150 service businesses, 100 retail stores, 50 medical facilities and 25 or so industrial services and government agencies.
There are additional plans too. The village, for example, now owns a city block at Main Street and Warren Avenue and has been holding hearings to determine what to do with the property.
“We are considering maybe a combination of condominiums with some retail on the bottom floor of the building,” said Shoger. “We want to develop condominiums primarily in the downtown area for people who want to live close to public transportation.”
In the end, Downers Grove officials hope that they will have found the right mix to breathe new life into the downtown for decades to come.
“We will have a diverse and economically viable center,” said Ulmer. “And just as important, it will be a cultural center for Downers Grove. We’ll have interaction where people are walking down the street versus driving in their car.
“And that’s what people want,” she added. “People want to be part of a community versus just living live there. They want a sense of community.”
