Naperville Sun: Revamped Eagle Street Gateway on Naperville Riverwalk open for public use
Naperville Riverwalk’s revamped Eagle Street Gateway, already being used by visitors, will be celebrated Nov. 14 with a public grand opening event.
Completion of the reimagined amenity marks the latest step in implementing the Riverwalk 2031 Master Plan, a years-long push to improve the DuPage River walkway in time for its 50th anniversary — and the city’s 200th — in 2031. The gateway is one of the largest proposed Riverwalk improvements.
There are a dozen projects the city plans to tackle as part of the master plan, which includes such things as building out new sections of the path and ecological restoration along the riverbank. Some of those projects, like the prairie nature garden located west of Centennial Beach and the paddleboat quarry overlooks, have already been completed.
The city plans to start construction on two new projects in 2026, Naperville Deputy City Engineer Andy Hynes said. First is the construction of a park on North Central College property at 430 S. Washington St. The second is the south extension of the Riverwalk to a new Hillside Road Gateway.
Work on the Eagle Street Gateway began in March and cost about $3.5 million. The majority of the funding came from the city other than a $900,000 federal grant secured by U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville.
One of the main upgrades was the installation of a ramp to improve accessibility on the north side of the river. Before the improvements were made, patrons with mobility issues who followed the lower bulkhead walk from east to west could not go forward on the walkway and had to retrace the 1,000-foot-long dead-end to return to street level, a city news release said.
“I’ve been patiently waiting for this project to come to fruition since 2008 when resident Cheryl Hoyer respectfully approached the Riverwalk Commission advocating for her wheelchair-bound daughter and others who did not feel safe navigating the Riverwalk at Eagle Street,” said Jan Erickson, current chair of the Riverwalk Commission.
“It’s not that this hasn’t been on the Riverwalk Commission’s (radar),” said Erickson, a former Riverwalk administrator for the city. “It’s not like they’ve forgotten about it. It’s been there. But the opportunity (to address it) just hasn’t presented itself in a meaningful way, and it did with the master plan.”
Although Hoyer has since died and the family has moved out of Naperville, Erickson was able to let her daughter, Kathryn, know that the project had been completed. She and her father told Erickson that they look forward to visiting Naperville to see the revamped gateway.
“And now it’s an amazing addition to our city’s crown jewel,” Erickson said.
Other features of the new gateway include a series of broad steps and terraces connected by a sloping path that provides access between the river and street-level areas. Native plants and ornamental landscaping have been added and the original gateway’s red sculpture is back, providing consistency between the old and the new.
When Erickson was visiting the Riverwalk earlier this week, she said it was a joy to watch people using the reimagined access point.
“It was so fun standing there and watching parents walk by with strollers and using the ramp to go from the lower walkway up to street level,” Erickson said. “This is exactly what we had in mind. And it was so great to see that.”
Foster and Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli are among those expected to attend the public grand opening event at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 14 at 320 Jackson Ave.
“For more than 44 years, the Riverwalk has been Naperville’s gathering place along the DuPage River built by our neighbors so future generations could make memories,” Wehrli said in the news release.
“Our job now is to be good stewards of what they started and to make sure everyone can enjoy it. The new Eagle Street Gateway does exactly that by adding safer, more accessible connections while improving the look and feel of this stretch of the Riverwalk.”