SYCAMORE – The site of a former mobile home park east of Sycamore, where residents were plagued by floods, is set to reopen as a forest preserve as early as this summer.

DeKalb County bought Evergreen Village Mobile Home Park at 955 E. State St. and relocated about 400 residents in summer 2014. The 60-acre Sycamore Forest Preserve, which is in a floodplain just outside the city limits, was home to 123 trailers.

The county is using $7.1 million in state and federal emergency management grants for the project, which includes restoring open space in the area.

DeKalb County Administrator Gary Hanson said the DeKalb County Forest Preserve District has been working to restore the area, and it is hoping for a summer opening.

The county must wait, however, to transfer the land to the forest preserve district until the state officially closes on the grant funding, Hanson said.

He also said the preserve will connect with the expansion of the Great Western Trail that the city of Sycamore has planned.

“It will be a really nice setup once all the pieces are in place,” Hanson said.

The grounds and parking lot are closed to the public, but residents can be seen riding bikes or pushing strollers from trails leading through the back of the property.

Groundskeeper Jeff Perry said paving and landscaping still need to be done, but it probably will not take long if the weather permits. Three shelters already have been installed.

Perry said the new forest preserve is in an ideal location that locals can easily find.

“I’m glad it’s in town yet out of town,” he said. “This is a forest preserve for the citizens. They don’t have to go out to Hampton.”

Perry said that once the preserve is ready to be opened, the final features will be added, such as picnic tables, rocks and gates.

“I’m glad to be a part of it,” he said.

DeKalb County Board Chairman Mark Pietrowski Jr. said during the annual State of the Counties luncheon Friday that the new forest preserve would be a "tremendous asset for the county."

“It will have a fishing pond, it will have different shelters in it, and it will – once it forms and once we open it – quickly become the most visited forest preserve, I predict, because it’s right off of downtown Sycamore,” Pietrowski said.

Pietrowski said the area was not safe for the mobile homes because of the consistent flooding.

“We would have to have emergency personnel with boats and get people out, but you’ve got the electricity lines and everything, so we’re very thankful that no one was ever seriously injured or hurt at that facility, and glad that we were able to transform it to open space,” he said.

The new forest preserve will add to 19 existing forest preserves in DeKalb County that cover more than 1,400 acres, include 50 miles of trails and attract more than 100,000 visitors annually, Pietrowski said.