City of Champaign planners hope to have a mild winter to prevent any delays on the second phase of the Garden Hills neighborhood drainage project scheduled to be completed in 2025. 

“To meet that [2025] deadline, we are going to need some good weather this winter to be able to work through most of the winter,” Tyler Suits, a city civil engineer working on the project, said. “If we get that, I think we are still on track to have everything except for landscaping to be finished up by the end of 2025.”

During a neighborhood association meeting last month, residents of Champaign’s Garden Hills were given updates on the multi-million dollar drainage project in their neighborhood.

At the meeting, residents got a glimpse at the next phase of the project, which includes roadway work for pipe installation, and learned construction is planned to start next spring from city planners and engineers.

United Garden Hills Neighborhood Association President Chad Smith was also in attendance.

Smith said that once city planners started to see the issues the neighborhood has faced for years first-hand, they could apply solutions to their designs.

“To be able to have conversation with engineers, with city departments, to give my perspective is something you don’t often get,” he said in an interview at the meeting. “The project is needed. It’s going to have a lot of benefit.”

The drainage project has been in the works for years and came into focus following a city study in the 2015-16 fiscal year that found undersized sewer pipes and a lack of an emergency overland flow route were to blame for flooding issues, CU-CitizenAccess previously reported. 

As a result of the study, the Garden Hills Drainage Improvements Project was proposed. It consists of three phases.

The initial phase involved purchasing and demolishing 46 homes along Hedge Road that were “necessary to construct the proposed detention basin” according to the city’s website.

The second phase broke ground last year and includes building two detention basins along Hedge Road by excavating holes and installing the main piping that connects the basins, said Suits, who works in the public works department.”

Currently, construction remains in this phase and is still on track for “substantial completion” in 2025, Suits said.

The third phase is scheduled to begin next year.

This phase includes roadway work for pipe installation under the streets so water can be properly carried to the basins. These storm sewers will carry floodwater from the northern half of the neighborhood and bring it south to the detention basins.

The drainage pipes will be installed in sections of Paula Drive, Garden Hills Drive and Cynthia Drive.

“We’re finishing the design right now and should start construction next spring,” Suits said.

Because Garden Hills residents have been met with flooding for decades, Suits said the city installed “limited storm sewers” over the last 20-30 years. However, without the basins to hold all of the floodwater, larger pipes could not be installed.

This existing stormwater infrastructure will be maintained throughout the duration of construction, he said. 

Flooding continues in neighborhood amidst construction

In the meantime, residents continue to face localized flooding.

At the meeting, some residents voiced concerns, such as recent rainfall, to those working on the project. One resident described the puddles by their house as “little ponds.”

The Nov. 18 meeting was one of many meetings between Garden Hills residents and city planners, as community collaboration has been “extensive” during the project.

“I think the collaboration was very extensive throughout the entire design phase of the project,” Lacy Rains Lowe, planning manager for Champaign’s Planning and Development department, said in an interview. 

The drainage project is only one part of the neighborhood-wide improvement plan. This includes adding streetlights, which has already been completed, stormwater drainage, adding sidewalks, and the construction of Hedge Park, which will surround the two basins.

The streetlighting project was completed in December 2023, which added 126 streetlights. Additional lighting will be installed along Hedge Road as part of the ongoing Phase 2 of the drainage improvements project and more installed along Paula Drive as part of Phase 3 next year.

Approximately 70 lights will be installed as part of Phase 2 work, Suits said. He estimated between 15 and 20 will be installed as part of Phase 3.

Hedge Park will be centered between the basins. The park will include a 1.5-mile walking path, decorative retaining walls, overlook areas, ornamental bridges, native plantings, seating areas and pedestrian lighting, according to the city’s website.

During the planning period of the project, city planners established Hedge POP! Park, a pop-up park that included a basketball court and an RC race car track. The temporary park helped city planners become more familiar with Garden Hills and its residents.

“We said, ‘Let’s create a space where we can have a physical presence and be there on a regular basis, but it will also be an amenity for community members to utilize when we’re not there,’” Lowe said.

Lowe said Garden Hills has been disproportionately impacted by gun violence, speeding through the neighborhood, and other crime. As a result, residents were reluctant to talk to planners.

But through the POP! Park, Lowe said, residents were able to voice their concerns.

“The project itself is stronger because we were able to address a lot of those concerns from residents,” Lowe said.