The opening of Sterling’s Northwestern Steel and Wire Park is once again facing delays.

Originally expected to wrap up in late June, the project was pushed back when masonry work extended into July. Now, officials are eyeing a potential spring 2026 opening for the full park. However, City Manager Scott Shumard said there are still “too many loose ends” to predict an exact date.

Shumard said the main delay stems from waiting on Stratus Networks to install the fiber optics needed for remote building controls, such as doors and cameras. Additional setbacks included waiting for ComEd to install a transformer – now completed – and for Nicor to connect gas service, which began last week and is expected to wrap up by the end of this week.

“It took a bit to get a transformer here. Nicor work is underway now,” Shumard told Shaw Local. “The biggest utility holdup now is getting fiber optic on-site, and I have not gotten a date yet, even though we signed the contract in early July.”

Despite those delays, Principal Landscape Architect Blake Theisen told the Riverfront Commission that work is still progressing.

“We had a construction team meeting late last week, and utilities are underway. All the playground surfacing is done. The building pieces keep plugging away,” Theisen said. “They were looking at another four weeks or so to get things kind of pulled together. The ice ribbon is underway, that team is mobilized, so progress moves along.”

City officials are now hoping for a soft opening of the ice ribbon near New Year’s Eve but nothing has been finalized.

Riverfront Commission co-Chairman Marc Geil said the Riverfront Foundation has collected $2.2 million of the nearly $3 million pledged by investors for the new park.

The National roof

The National Manufacturing site’s roof had begun to leak to the point where the city was faced with fixing the problem or paying more money to deal with continuing water damage.

Originally, the repairs were estimated to cost more than $500,000. However, earlier this year, Ron Clewer of developer Gorman & Co. reported that Sterling Commercial Roofers had since inspected the roof and would complete the repairs for about $80,000.

At the Oct. 16 Riverfront Commission meeting, Clewer reported that while the repairs to the National building’s roof are now complete, the final costs came in at just over $160,000 – double the originally projected bid.

“It got boosted because there was some additional damage. Then they got up on the roof and discovered even more damage,” Clewer said. “The end result is they wound up replacing about two and a half times the roof panels that they thought they were going to have to replace, mainly because of delamination and water underneath.”

Lawrence & National building improvements

Improvements to the Lawrence Bros. building – such as new lighting and window banners – have been on hold while the city awaits bids for the environmental abatement work at the former Lawrence and National companies’ sites. The work includes mitigating soil contamination; diminishing asbestos; and removing lead-based paint, contaminated concrete and hazardous materials in preparation for redevelopment.

In June, Clewer said the bids came back “significantly” higher than expected, citing both the timing during a busy summer construction season and contractors’ limited capacity as contributing factors. He said the city, Gorman and the city’s qualified environmental consultant, Fehr Graham Engineering & Environmental, advised reissuing those bids after schools resumed in August, when companies have fewer projects to choose from and are likely to submit lower bids.

Clewer said using the current bids would require reallocating funds saved from other projects, including the National’s roof, to cover environmental work, effectively eliminating the budget for lighting and banners – adding that the goal is to attract more bidders, lower prices, and avoid exceeding the overall budget.

During the Oct. 16 Riverfront Commission meeting, he said bids for the Brownfield grant work on the National building came back at $1.9 million.

“The actual available funds under the EPA grant that remain are about $370,000,” Clewer said. “So, we’re going to need to prioritize what work the grant can do versus what work will get kicked down the road, but also, what other work we may want to reconsider. Is there another grant application cycle that we can apply for and keep that moving?”

Clewer plans to meet with city officials and Fehr Graham’s Ross Grimes to plan their next move.

“I know our priority is, could we get those areas where there’s window frame challenges, etc, resolved, so that we could put those [window] banners and things in,” Clewer said. “So we’ll figure out what that looks like.”