Miller Point’s tiny shops, splash area, and other improvements set for spring construction in McHenry

Miller Point is the centerpiece of McHenry’s Riverwalk and is set to see its biggest improvements in 2023.

Plans are to redevelop Riverside Drive at the pedestrian bridge. As people strolling through Miller Point come on and off the bridge, they will be met by the Riverwalk Shoppes, new public bathrooms, a spray pad, and a new venue for outdoor music in the park, McHenry Parks and Recreation Director Bill Hobson said.

The spray pad area does not have all of the amenities of a splash pad, Hobson added. It is a scaled down version, with water spraying up. He likened it to a smaller version of the water feature at Chicago’s Millennium Park.

The McHenry City Council is set to vote on a $2.27 million plan for the area Monday evening.

Three other planned improvements, including additional parking, a grassy or artificial turf play area and additional waterfront landscaping, will be pushed to a future budget or budgets, Hobson said.

He’s excited about what the final product at Miller Point will bring to downtown. If all goes according to plan and the weather cooperates, the tiny shops planned for the park could be in place by May 1.

“The park has proven itself as the central hub. It is the central point of not just the riverwalk,” but of McHenry’s downtown, he said.

It is where, Hobson said, people stop in the summer and gather for events like ShamROCKS the Fox and Night the Light.

The McHenry Riverwalk began as an idea in 2000, with construction seriously starting about five years later. It began, he said, as the city wanted to connect what are basically three different downtown areas and encourage private development there.

The 10 tiny shops, known as the McHenry Riverwalk Shoppes, are a part of that plan. Now being built by McHenry High School District 156 students, the small stalls will allow start-up and small businesses to use the shops as business incubators, selling wares to those strolling through the area.

Plans are to have the shops open late this spring, remain open through the summer, and then re-open on a seasonal basis, including a Christmas-themed market and for the ShamROCKS the Fox, Hobson said.

A total of 17 proprietors have applied for the 10 shops, McHenry Area Chamber of Commerce president Molly Ostap said. The business group will manage the shops once they have been installed.

A jury is judging those applications, which are now in the “final pitch stage,” Ostap said.

Those applicants are judged on concept, business readiness, potential for growth and more, she said.

The winning applicants will be chosen and notified by Dec. 16, with educational workshops planned for the successful applicants in late January, Ostap said.

“Depending on how winter weather affects our site development plans, our goal is to start assembling the units onsite at Miller Point on April 1,” she said.

Miller Point construction is not Hobson’s only plan for the Riverwalk next year. He hopes to see final numbers for Section 4, from the Pearl Street bridge to the Route 120 bridge, in January.

He and others from the city have been working with adjacent landowners for easements and other agreements to allow public access to the waterfront area, Hobson said. Once that section is completed, hoped for late 2023, the Riverwalk would allow pedestrian access from the Green Street Bridge to Weber Park.

Future phases, including from the Green Street bridge to the Route 120/31 bridge, and in front of the former wastewater treatment site, will depend on outside developers, Hobson said.

“You want the project to be complementary to what the development is,” he said. “When we work hand in hand (with developers) is when we have success.”