This artist’s rendering shows how an enclosed “garbage corral” will look if built in a sunken parking lot near the businesses that abut Riverside Drive, which want to have trash dumpsters off site so they don’t mar outside uses like patio dining. Riverside Drive is finally living up to the vision Elgin officials had when the city invested millions to create the downtown centerpiece.
The city’s hoping the answer will be the temporary “garbage corral” it’s planning to build at the southwest corner of Chicago Street and South Grove Avenue. It will be on the northern side of a 1.3-acre, sunken-surface parking lot facing Riverside Drive with enough space to fit two solid waste dumpsters, a recycling dumpster and a grease container.
The Riverside Drive promenade in downtown Elgin is drawing more users thanks to the Downtown Elgin Market and the businesses and restaurants that abut the walkway, which are starting to offer outdoor options to take advantage of the Fox River view. “The reality is that with new businesses coming, there is going to be a drastic increase in the number of dumpsters that back up to that area,” Fukala told the council. “The intended use of that area is a public space where people want to spend time.”
“I know garbage is an issue for every business downtown,” she said at the meeting. “We really aren’t doing anything else for property owners in the rest of the area.” “It is ludicrous to even think about taking city-owned land, which we hope down the road will be developed, and erecting a garbage corral with TIF money,” she said. “If they want a corral, let them pony up $33,000.”