North Aurora Village Board members have agreed to begin the process of expanding and updating the Veterans Memorial at Farview Drive and North Willoway in the village.
In a memo given to the Village Board during a recent Committee of the Whole meeting, Village Administrator Steve Bosco outlined various phases of the project which he said reflected the village’s strategic plan that “includes an objective to explore opportunities to enhance the Veterans Memorial and increase its awareness.”
Bosco confirmed there was agreement among committee members to “hire a company to design a concept to enhance the Veterans Memorial.”
“The village has a strategic plan and there is an objective to enhance the current memorial and part of that is also to bring attention to the memorial and make it more of a destination for people to visit,” Bosco said. “We hired a company, Teska and Associates out of Evanston, who do landscape architecture. We had them meet with a committee made up of a few residents, a few employees, our Public Works director, community development director, the village president and myself. Three of the members of the group are actual veterans.”
Bosco said the proposed plan involved “an expansion of the existing memorial” but that plans changed after the group visited the site together for the first time.
“When we went out there, the committee really wanted to take a better look at what was already there and enhance it,” he said. “They felt that it could use some modernization and basically some more features to bring people down there.”
North Aurora Village President Mark Gaffino said there was a consensus among the group that changes were needed.
“When we looked at the site, it was in pretty bad shape and the architect and committee thought we should start over and keep it like it is to some degree but add some new materials with concrete and block – enlarge it,” he said.
Following the on-site evaluation, the committee worked with the landscape firm to come up with a three-phase concept which includes doing a makeover of what is currently at the memorial, followed by an expansion of the memorial down the street on property the village owns.
“We’ll take down some of the existing features and put some others up and make it a little bit bigger, but the first phase would also involve more landscaping and places for people to sit,” Bosco said. “There would be places for people to reflect and more of the actual memorial to go through and see plaques and acknowledgements.”
The expansion is possible as Willoway is only a few blocks long and the village “owns mostly one side of the road that is mostly grass and trees,” Bosco said.
“Along this street, we are looking to build a separate location in the future where we can feature a piece of military equipment at Willoway and State Street and maybe some history about it and what it was used for and another seating area,” he said.
The next phase would involve putting in some more “pedestrian-friendly features along the street” including benches, flowers and other things village officials said would draw more people to the site.
Estimated costs include roughly $670,000 for phase one, just over $225,000 for phase two and nearly $300,000 for phase three for a total of almost $1.2 million.
Gaffino said he hopes the village “can get that down by about 30%” based on the materials used “and possibly have staff do some of the work.”
Bosco said the village is now reviewing the first concept from the design company as well as “hypothetical pricing” for the project.
“Cost is based on the current concept they have drawn, but the next phase the board gave us direction for would be to take that concept and drill down on the first phase. That’s when you actually start to pick out materials and itemize the work,” Bosco said. “When that revised concept is done it will go back to the board for approval and we’ll put it in our budget for the future and hopefully start work the summer of next year if it’s approved.”
Bosco said with board approval and with all plans and costs finalized, the first phase could be done as early as Veterans Day next year.
Gaffino said he hopes the site would also be used in the future for a number of community events that could include “partnering with schools and other groups and maybe having concerts that will bring more people to the location.”
“We need to build up our vets and continue to honor them even better,” he said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
