CHAMPAIGN — After years of planning, construction and $62 million spent, the Garden Hills neighborhood improvements are complete.
Hedge Park is the main attraction of the new improvements. It includes a workout area, swing set, an exploradome with webbing and ropes to monkey around and a splash zone to cool off.
Alex Nagy, one of Champaign’s city engineers, said he thinks the splash zone is going to be a big hit amongst the kids in the neighborhood.
“It goes through a cycle of different sprayers coming up,” he added. “So, the kids, I think, they’re going to be really in this area pretty heavily.”
The park will be owned and maintained by the Champaign Park District through an intergovernmental agreement.
On either side of the park, there are two stormwater flood basins to mitigate flooding, which was the focus of this project.
“When it rains heavy, the amount of water that’s stored in these basins is equivalent to 110 feet of water over a football field playing surface,” Nagy said.
The city also added around 130 light fixtures throughout the neighborhood, and a number of sidewalks and bus platforms.
When the Garden Hills neighborhood was built in the late 1950’s, there were less stringent requirements for neighborhood infrastructure compared to today, according to Nagy.
This meant that the neighborhood was not initially built with ample sidewalks, light fixtures and preventative flooding infrastructure.
In 2018, the city of Champaign bought 47 homes along Hedge Rd. and one off of the north side of the railroad tracks near the improvements.
Construction started in November 2023 and concluded on Monday.
Tyler Suits, a civil engineer who worked on the project, said one thing he loves about the Garden Hills improvements is the level of community engagement considered.
“Even down to picking red as the color to use out here,” he said, referring to the red playground equipment and red bridges across the basins. “It was one of the topics we asked residents about as we were doing the community input piece at the start. And red was the overwhelming choice.”
The city will continue to add small touchups, including adding more native plants to the park, as well as more sidewalks and bus stops as funding becomes available.