Village moves forward with parking site improvement plans to add more parking in the downtown area
HUNTLEY — At the June 23 Village Board meeting, trustees were introduced to the site plan — including landscaping and lighting, for the Woodstock Street parking lot and for improvements that will be made for on-street parking on 1st street.
According to village staff, the proposed Woodstock Street parking lot and 1st Street on-street improvements will provide 48 additional parking spaces in the downtown area.
The Woodstock Street lot would provide 40 of those 48 parking spaces, with the remaining 8 parking spots being added on the north side of 1st Street.
The new parking lot is proposed to be located north of the former Fire Station One building and will extend to property located to the east on 11011 Woodstock Street, which fronts Woodstock Street.
Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd. (CBBEL), the engineering firm most commonly used by the village, prepared the plans for both the Woodstock Street lot and the on-street parking spaces on 1st Street.
The number of spaces provided in the Woodstock Street lot includes 38 parking stalls, two stalls that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and one garage stall, which will technically bring the total number of parking spaces on that lot to 41 stalls.
The garage stall and 16 of the Woodstock Street lot parking spaces, however, will be reserved for residents of apartment units that are in the process of being constructed in the location of the former Fire Station One property.
Director of Development Services for the village Charlie Nordman told trustees that the 2022 Fiscal Year Budget includes $750,000 for the Woodstock Street parking lot and $340,000 for the additional on-street parking including construction and engineering in the downtown TIF Fund.
The only questions on the parking site improvement plans came from Trustee JR Westberg who asked if snow removal would still be provided by the same subcontractor the village currently uses, to which Nordman confirmed that would be the case.
With trustees having approved the plans, the next phase required trustees to approve a bid award to Schroeder Asphalt Services, Inc. for the Woodstock Street parking lot and additional downtown on-street parking.
The Village Board had previously provided authorization on March 10, to seek bids for infrastructure improvements related to the parking site plans.
The village received five bids on June 9, but it was Schroeder Asphalt Services that offered the lowest bid for $483,914.50, which was approximately 10% under CBBEL’s estimate of $542,293.
With no further questions or comments from the board, Mayor Tim Hoeft asked for a motion to award the bid to Schroeder Asphalt Services to begin the infrastructure improvements. The motion passed unanimously.
The Village Board also approved a resolution authorizing the use of CBBEL’s engineering services in an amount not to exceed $54,000 for the parking improvement plans.
Village Manager Dave Johnson had previously told trustees that since 2015, Huntley has increased the total number of on and off-street parking in the downtown area by approximately 65%.
“So, there are hundreds of spaces currently, and what we propose…is an increase in our total parking in the downtown area for an additional 231 parking spaces bringing the total parking both on and off-site to 540 total spaces,” Johnson told the Village Board back in February. “The overall increase since we started our revitalization is almost 300%. So, we’ve gone from 185 parking spaces in the downtown to 540.”
