Stuart Sports Complex Expansion Gets Final Approval

After years of planning and months of discussion, the expansion of in received its final approval Monday night.

The Fox Valley Park District plans to start construction on the new complex in the spring. The expansion covers 135 acres north of Route 30 and west of the police station on Civic Center Drive, and will be designed to blend in with the police station campus.

Stuart Sports Complex currently has 25 full-size soccer fields and four baseball diamonds. The expansion will add four lighted baseball fields, 11 soccer fields, 674 new parking spaces and a dog park, and will make room for a planned westward expansion of Aucutt Road, something that has been on the village books for years.

On Monday, village trustees approved a special use for the expansion and an intergovernmental agreement with the park district, by a vote of 4-2. Details on that agreement are , but it includes a land swap—the park district will get an L-shaped parcel of land along Route 30, and the village will get a 10-acre parcel on the northwest part of the police station campus, on which village leaders hope to build a new public works facility.

The agreement also includes a future pedestrian bridge over Route 30, and a stipulation that all lights on the ballfields be turned off each night no later than 11:15 p.m.

Trustee Pete Heinz had expressed concern that greenlighting the new Stuart Sports Complex would mean higher taxes for park district residents. However, the expansion will be paid for with $8.6 million remaining from a 2008 bond sale of $44.9 million. Park district residents voted for a referendum at that time, so the tax increase that will fund the new Stuart has already taken place.

Heinz was one of two dissenters on Monday, the other being Trustee Andy Kaczmarek. He said he was unhappy with the land swap, believing the village was giving up more valuable land than it was getting. He also expressed concerns about language in the ordinance that would allow an amusement tax, and a special service area, he said.

The expansion project is expected to see bids in May, with the bulk of the construction work to take place this season, according to Jeff Long, public relations manager with the park district. The new Stuart Sports Complex will open in 2013, but the athletic fields will not be available until 2014, to give the turf time to grow, Long said.

“This is going to be a huge development for the village and our residents and it’s going to be an economic development driver for the whole area out west of Orchard Road,” said Montgomery Village Manager Anne Marie Gaura.