By the end of summer 2025, downtown Flossmoor will have a new look.
The delineators that have narrowed portions of the streets that converge in downtown Flossmoor for several years will soon be gone. There will be more benches. Curbs will be reconfigured in places. There will be fewer trees but more greenery.
The changes are part of a plan to improve safety and aesthetics in the downtown area, the culmination of an effort that began in 2017 after three pedestrians were struck by a vehicle while crossing Park Drive from the traffic island.
At the Feb. 17 board meeting, trustees approved two measures in preparation for the Central Business District Roadway, Pedestrian and Streetscape project to begin.
One was a resolution adopting a joint funding agreement with the Illinois Department of Transportation, which guarantees the village will pay its portion of the project. Most of the costs will be covered by an Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program grant of $1.8 million. The village also received grants to help pay for earlier engineering phases of the project.
The board also approved a contract with engineering firm Baxter & Woodman to supervise the work. The $177,755 cost of the contract is part of the fiscal year 2026 budget, according to Director of Public Works John Brunke. The project is expected to be included in IDOT’s March 7 bid letting, and if all goes well, construction could start in May, he said.
The plan
Some of the key elements of the project involve making permanent the temporary trafficway narrowing measures taken several years ago. Delineators were used on the east side of Sterling Avenue and on both corners of the intersection of Park and Central drives.
The delineators will be removed and curb contours reshaped following similar lines. The same curb treatment will be applied to the northwest corner of the Sterling Avenue-Flossmoor Road intersection, which does not currently have delineators. The result will shorten the distance pedestrians have to cover to cross Sterling Avenue.
The new curb shape there will cost a parking space near the intersection. The downtown area will lose six parking spaces total, some because they don’t follow existing safety standards, according to Dan Schug, associate vice president of Baxter & Woodman.
The loss of spaces will be compensated for during the summer month, however, as the downtown restaurants on the west side of Sterling Avenue, Dunning’s Market and Bistro on Sterling, will no longer require six or seven spaces from spring to late fall to enable outdoor dining. That practice started during the COVID-19 pandemic to help those businesses survive.
Outdoor dining will continue, though, moving to the sidewalk. The sidewalk width will not change much, but a number of trees planted in grates will be replaced by fewer trees in large planters, opening up more useable sidewalk space.
Another significant change will come to the parkway and sidewalk in front of the post office on Park Drive, where the delineators will be replaced by curb “bump outs,” Schug said during a meeting with Flossmoor Business Association members in December.
“The road … is going to get a lot smaller. That’s a safety improvement. It’s going to slow vehicles down,” Schug said. “It’s also going to give us more room for pedestrians, more room for sidewalk benches, planters, gathering spaces as a whole … which again is a good thing for our businesses. More pedestrian traffic, friendlier atmosphere. That’s good for everybody.”
Shops to stay open
At the December meeting between the Flossmoor Business Association and village officials, FBA President Maureen Mader said she and other downtown business owners were both excited and apprehensive about the project.
“I was walking down Sterling Avenue recently, and I was like ‘Flossmoor, I love you, but you look kind of tired. You need a little nudging up. So I’m excited to see what it’s going to look like,” she said. “But we’re also scared, beyond scared, that it’s going to put us out of business.”
Village Manager Bridget Wachtel said the village is attuned to the needs of business in the construction zone.
“We recognize that we’re doing construction in your house and you’re still living there,” she said.
Brunke said the contract would stipulate that access to businesses must be maintained at all times so businesses will not have to close during construction.
