Embracing a ‘rural renaissance’: Sterling breaks ground on riverfront park

STERLING — Sterling held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for its yet-to-be-named riverfront park at 201 Wallace St., the city’s first step toward a $300 million project known as Riverfront Reimagined.

A crowd of more than 60 people, including Sterling residents, members of the Sterling City Council and the Riverfront Reimagined Commission, Ron Clewer of developer Gorman & Co. and state Rep. Bradley Fritts (R-Dixon), gathered to celebrate the park’s development.

“We stand here on the ground, rich with history, spurring the growth and development that shaped our city decades ago,” Sterling Mayor Diana Merdian said. “Once a symbol of industry and progress, this site is now on the verge of another transformation that will once again spark new life and opportunity for future generations.”

The new park at the former Northwestern Steel and Wire Mill site will include a multi-age, accessible playground, splash pad, plaza, park shelter, stage facility and restrooms. The city awarded a $4.7 million bid to Sjostrom and Sons, Inc. of Rockford on Sept. 16 and expects the majority of the work will be finished by June 2025, with a tentative opening the following month.

The park is phase one of Sterling’s $300 million Riverfront Reimagined Project. In addition to the park, the Riverfront Reimagined plan could include an amphitheater, worker apartments, a hotel and events center, and a rooftop bar/restaurant for the four buildings at the Lawrence site. That could be followed by market-rate apartments, a fitness center and yet-to-be-determined uses of the National site.

Riverfront Commission co-chairs Marc Geil and Terry McGuire thanked initial donors such as Halo Industries, CGH Medical Center, the Dillon Foundation and others for their financial commitments to help fund phases two and three of Riverfront Reimagined.

“We are confident that other local businesses and community members will see this progress and join in our early donors to move the riverfront development farther and faster,” Geil said.

Clewer asked the crowd for patience and flexibility in the years moving forward with the riverfront project’s overall development. He said environmental remediation work will continue over the next few years.

“We’re hoping that by next spring, we’re going to be able to show you something physically is happening on the Lawrence site, and you’ll see it look different,” Clewer said.

The city in September 2023 received a $500,000 Brownfields Cleanup Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The grant will be used to fund restoration activities at the former Lawrence and National companies’ sites to include mitigating soil contamination, diminishing asbestos, and removing-lead based paint, contaminated concrete and hazardous materials in preparation for the site’s redevelopment.