By Bob Seidenberg
From sidewalks to a new or renovated police and fire headquarters, the city has a daunting list of capital improvement challenges stacking up for 2026.
At a recent Finance & Budget Committee meeting, staff members presented the possibility of increasing the General Obligation debt the city takes on annually from $10 million to $20 million as one way to get more done.
After years of funding under the lower figure, “our austerity is now catching up with us,” said Councilmember Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th Ward) during discussion and “we find ourselves in a hole we have to reckon with.”
City engineer Lara Biggs presented the request, noting that the city faces major challenges in its 2026 Capital Improvement Program (CIP), where “the current funding levels will not meet the needs of the existing assets.”
The city has made some headway on its legacy facilities and has seen construction completed or close to being completed at two — the new Animal Shelter at 2310 Oakton St. and Ecology Center, 2024 McCormick Blvd. — she said.
Plans have been completed for the Service Center at 2020 Asbury Ave., which houses Public Works and other city operations as well as for the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St.
Discussions are continuing for the Civic Center at 2100 Ridge Ave., which formerly housed city operations, as well as the Police/Fire Headquarters, currently located at 1454 Elmwood Ave. and 909 Lake St., Biggs told committee members.
On headquarters for the police and fire departments, Biggs had said in a report to the council in February that negotiations were ongoing with Northwestern University to acquire the property at 1801 Maple Ave. and the university’s companion building at 906 University Place for future police/fire headquarters operations. She said then that staff is investigating other options as well.
At last week’s meeting, she told Finance & Budget Committee members, “We are working still with NU to negotiate [the] potential of acquiring 1801 Maple.
“It would most likely be less expensive to refurbish that as police/fire headquarters [she estimated between $75 million and $100 million] than to build a new police/fire headquarters on the existing property. However, if we are unable to reach an accommodation, that is sort of our backup plan at the moment.”
AECOM, the city’s consultant on the police/fire project as well as 2100 Ridge, had presented officials with initial options and cost estimates in January 2024, and have updated these options several times since.
Cost estimates
The firm estimated in February that acquiring 1801 Maple and 906 University Place and relocating headquarters there, was the least expensive alternative at an estimated cost of $68.4 million.
Estimated costs for other alternatives were:
•$116.7 million for acquiring the Maple and Universityproperties to develop an integrated civic center and police/fire headquarters;
• $166.6 million to rebuild on the headquarters at its 1454 Elmwood Ave. site, combined with a renovation of 2100 Ridge Ave.;
• $143.3 million to rebuild the headquarters at 2100 Ridge, and renovate the civic center at that property.
The city’s current police station, at 1454 Elmwood has already gone through several major renovations, with a previous council authorizing $500,000 toward repairs for the building’s elevator in 2023.
The present station, built in 1949, Biggs said in a previous memo, “is woefully outdated and does not meet modern standards for holding cells, victim services support, ADA, and overall security. The building is also substantially undersized, providing only 50-60% of the needed space to support the current operations.” Most of the 200 employees are on the police side with the Fire Department maintaining administrative offices on the 909 Lake St. side.
Biggs touched on a number of other projects in her report on capital improvement challenges for fiscal 2026, updating information she had shared with committee members at their September 2024 meeting.
Fountain Square replacement:
Staff is finalizing a request for proposal for a design-build contract to replace the fountain there, which has been turned off since 2021. The RFP is to be issued this fall, with construction currently foreseen for 2026.
Water main replacement/lead service lines:
As of December 2024, 10,246 service lines are in need of replacement with at least 698 having been replaced since tracking began in 2022, Biggs said.
The plan is in line with the statutory requirement to replace at least 5% of the total inventory each year, “ensuring compliance while advancing public health protection and critical infrastructure renewal,” Biggs said.
Park infrastructure funding:
In 2023, staff identified 11 parks as legacy parks, which need a holistic approach to renovation, Biggs told committee members, “but [staff] also began budgeting investment and modernization funds to replace individual amenities as they failed in nonlegacy parks.
“This year, in the last few months, we’ve removed playgrounds from eight parks,” she pointed out. “We estimate that it will cost about $4 million just to replace the playground equipment in those parks.”
The city has been budgeting $600,000 a year for the equipment replacement, she said, “so we’ve increased it to $1.5 million. But the truth is, there is a funding deficit versus the needs.”
Special assessment alley funding:
For the past 10 years there has been a waiting list for residents who requested improved alleys under the city’s 50-50 alley paving program, under which residents and the city share the cost over a 10-year period
At present, 88 community members are on a waiting list for a petition to have their alleys replaced, with the city completing two to three alley projects a year.
“In recent years, the City has relied on CDBG [the federally supported Community Development Block Grant program)] to assist with the construction of additional alleys,” Biggs said. “However, these funds are diminishing and are no longer a reliable source of funding for budgeting or long-term planning. As new petitions continue to be submitted and the wait list grows each year, it is essential to develop a strategic plan to address both the current backlog and anticipated future requests,” she said.
Sidewalk improvement in business districts:
Decades ago, in the 1980s, the city replaced concrete sidewalks with brick paver tiles in the downtown business district, primarily for aesthetic reasons.
Over time, the pavers have shifted, increasing trip hazards, Biggs said in her memo. Over the last 15 to 20 years, the city has adopted a new standard that is more ADA-friendly and easier to maintain — concrete sidewalks with a paver block ribbon along the curb, she said. “Gradually, all of the existing paver block sidewalks are planned to be converted to this updated standard,” she said. The most problematic stretches remaining are on longer, busier streets such as Chicago, Maple and Sherman avenues, where the brick pavers have settled or begun to deteriorate, she said.
“Given the long-term nature of this project, prioritizing the segments with the poorest condition, longest lengths, and highest pedestrian traffic will have the greatest impact,” she wrote in her memo.
In 2025, sections of brick paver sidewalks were replaced with the city’s updated standard, she said — in Benson from Clark to Davis streets and on Clark Street from Benson to Sherman Avenue. Officials have identified sidewalks on Chicago Avenue from Church Street to Davis Street as candidates for replacement in 2026, she said.
Borrowing more seen as needed
Since the needs far outstrip the funding, an increase in the bonding ceiling seems necessary, she indicated.
“This [$10 million in debt retired each year] represents debt that the City issued 20 years ago for capital investment in City infrastructure. In the last 10 years, the city has taken on the practice of targeting new debt to the debt that has been retired or paid off,” she said.
“Unfortunately, $10 million in debt issuance in 2026 does not purchase an equivalent amount to 2006,” she said.
In discussion, committee and Councilmember Clare Kelly (1st Ward) asked whether staff was working with Parks and Recreation Board members on renovations planned for the parks, noting their concern about increased use of consultants and outsourcing rather than increasing staff to maintain greenways.
Biggs said officials are actively working to lower consultant costs. At the same time, “If you look at one statistic, what we removed in playground equipment that was unsafe in two months would require $4 million to replace,” she said. “We can eliminate every consulting dollar in parks and rec budget for capital improvement, and it doesn’t even make a dent in the amenities costs versus the available funding.”
Davis asks spending analysis
Committee and Councilmember Parielle Davis (7th Ward), in her first term, suggested a retrospective from staff analyzing up to five years of program spending, “so that you can identify trends” on how the money has been spent.
Somewhere in the proposed budget, “we do need to get an idea of what solutions are possible,” she said, adding that the budget may suggest that “we need to cut costs but we have no information there of how to start or where to start,” she said.
Nieuwsma said Councilmember Davis’s concerns point to “fundamentally we don’t have enough money to do everything that we need to do.”
On parks, the city has made some improvements but there’s room for more, he said.
“Maybe we standardize playground equipment rather than having each kind of park be kind of a customized park,” he said.
On sidewalks, “It’s not just sidewalks in the business district that need attention,” he said, but “also in the neighborhoods.”
“I’m not sure what the exact number is but we pay millions of dollars, at least hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in legal settlements for trips and fall cases and I would much rather spend money on fixing the underlying problem and making sidewalks safe for everybody than paying for somebody’s medical bills.”
Committee member David Livingston maintained it would be good if staff provided information breaking down a $20 million dollar bond further, such as “what does the property tax [supporting the bond] look like in Year 5 and [Year] 10?”
For instance, he said, “how much have we increased the [bill for a] $500,000 home in cumulative taxes?”
Information at that level could be very informative, indicating to the people that this “is a number people can live with,” or “in a period where we can’t do what we want to do and it’s more of an austerity plan.
“Then we can fill in what the projects are,” he said.