Why Winfield leaders want to add a plaza downtown

Winfield’s Riverwalk Park will be filled with the sounds of yacht rock, ‘80s hair rock and country cowboys during the second season of a summer concert series starting Friday night.

Village leaders hope to create another outdoor gathering place as part of efforts to draw more people and development into the downtown.

Winfield trustees will vote Thursday on hiring landscape architects to draft preliminary designs for a public plaza on village property adjacent to the Metra train station.

“This is all part of our overall plan for our Town Center with the Riverwalk Park, with the planned plaza and certainly bringing in a lot more restaurants and businesses in the Town Center,” Village President Carl Sorgatz said.

Under the terms of a “historic” development agreement with Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital, the village and the health system would jointly fund the construction of the plaza in Winfield’s Town Center, as the downtown core is formally known.

Officials do not have a specific budget or design in mind. However, the agreement calls for Northwestern to contribute one-half of the combined costs of construction for the plaza up to $1 million (the lesser of the two).

“Support for Town Center Plaza is one component of our multiyear development agreement with the Village of Winfield that was approved in 2020 to revitalize the downtown district,” a Northwestern spokesperson said in a statement. “This collaboration has included the development of a medical office building, parking structure and portions of Riverwalk Park. Our goal is to support a thriving, financial growth model that is sustainable and benefits the community.”

The village plans to retain Hitchcock Design Group to help flesh out the plaza concept. That’s the same firm that helped design the park along the West Branch of the DuPage River. A wood band shell blends in with the landscape and serves as the venue for the Riverwalk Music Nights concert series.

“We expect even bigger crowds this year than we had last year, and we’ve got a pretty good lineup of bands that will be coming in,” Sorgatz said.

Winfield leaders say a plaza could allow the village to bring a weekend farmers market and more crowds into the Town Center. However, it’s unclear when the project could get off the drawing board.

The Town Center plan also calls for the municipal center to be torn down and moved to free up space for more development near the Metra station. The location of the planned plaza would overlap with the existing police station — the eastern half of village hall.

“We couldn’t do the plaza unless you took the police station out,” Sorgatz said at a village board meeting in May.

Complicating matters further, money for the village hall project would come from revenue generated by a special taxing district at the heart of an ongoing legal fight with local school districts.

“We want our residents to have the opportunity to see what can be in our Town Center,” Sorgatz said of launching the design process for the plaza.

The Hitchcock Design team would be tasked with gathering community input, conducting a design charette and presenting their recommendations at an open house.

“Certainly, CDH is a stakeholder that we would want to give every opportunity for input on what they think would be good additions to that,” Village Manager Curt Barrett said last month.

Northwestern also developed portions of Riverwalk Park with new paths, the band shell, a picnic shelter and a bocce court.

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