Brenden Moore
The State Journal-Register
Wild Birds Unlimited has been a mainstay on MacArthur Boulevard for more than a quarter century — longevity that owner Wade Kammin attributes to the street’s high traffic count and being “accessible from all sides of town.”
It is a good place to do business, Kammin said, and there have been several improvements along the boulevard over the years with older, dilapidated buildings being torn down and new anchors, like supermarket chain Hy-Vee, rising up.
Yet even as the corridor has shown these new signs of life during the past few years, Kammin said the road itself has not kept up, with the pavement, sidewalks and curbs falling into severe disrepair.
After years of appeals from residents, business owners and city leaders, it appears MacArthur Boulevard will finally get that much-needed facelift. About $30.5 million for improvements to the road between South Grand Avenue and Wabash Avenue has been listed in the Illinois Department of Transportation’s $23.5 billion road plan released earlier this week.
About $2.5 million of preliminary engineering work is slated for next year. IDOT spokesman Guy Tridgell said this will include a study phase, which will be an in-depth review of possible improvements and associated impacts, and a design phase followed by the drawing up of final construction plans.
It has been a long road to get to this point. Among other things, a master plan released in 2011 highlighted the need for improved streetscaping.
And in 2017, IDOT released a feasibility study that identified several possibilities for revitalizing the boulevard’s streetscape, improving pedestrian access and adding additional capacity north of Laurel Street. The options ranged from a simple resurfacing of the streets’ existing lanes to more comprehensive improvements that would include new curbs and gutters and dedicated bike lanes.
Tridgell said the alternatives developed during the 2017 study would be “a good starting point, but it is too early to tell what will emerge as the preferred alternative for improving MacArthur Boulevard.”
While an exact plan has yet to be formulated, Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin said the infrastructure improvements would create momentum for the boulevard’s redevelopment.
“The infrastructure improvements, in combination with the tax-increment financing linear district that we have along MacArthur, in combination with Town and Country Shopping Center being an enterprise zone area, it offers really strong inducements for redevelopment and investment,” McMenamin said.
Michael Higgins, president of the MacArthur Boulevard Association, said improvements would make the street an “attractive gateway” into the city.
Val Kessler, owner of Flip Flops Consignment Shop, said the road has some positive attributes such as a shared left turn lane, but that “it looks old” in its current state.
Kammin said he is most looking forward to the possibility of safety improvements for pedestrians.
“In many spots, the sidewalk and the parking lots all kind of become one,” Kammin said. “And I personally wouldn’t feel safe walking down MacArthur with regards to traffic. A lot of them are right on the road itself.”
IDOT estimates that about $15 million would be needed for road reconstruction and traffic signal improvements while $11 million will be needed for property acquisition — most likely to make room for a shared left turn lane between South Grand Ave. and Laurel Street. About an additional $1 million each would be needed for utility adjustments and construction engineering.
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 