DEAR FRIENDS OF THE NAPERVILLE PARK DISTRICT:
The many challenges seen in 2020-2021 gave way to tremendous multi-year growth across many areas of the Naperville Park District, continuing into 2024. While traditionally strong programs like Naperville Youth Soccer, Naperville Youth Basketball, memberships at Fort Hill Fitness and many others, continued to expand, staff and board grappled with the perpetual obstacle of not having enough indoor recreation program space to meet the needs of an incredibly active and sports- oriented community. In early 2024, the District embarked on the development of an Indoor Recreation Space Needs Assessment (IRSNA) to begin to understand 1.) whether there are current efficiencies in its existing inventory to grow program offerings; 2.) determine if additional indoor recreation space is needed; and 3.) ascertain the community’s support of a potential future endeavor that could add additional space. The end goal of the project was to have a comprehensive plan with recommendations for addressing current and future indoor space concerns while understanding
more about recreation interests across the community. Working through the multi-phase project included receiving a significant amount of community input attained through key leader interviews, focus groups, surveys, and open house events. We appreciate those residents and stakeholders who took the time to participate in the process; their feedback will help shape the Naperville Park District for many years to come. Beyond addressing the critical need for more indoor space to accommodate the recreation interests of a sizeable community of nearly 150,000, District staff and board understand the importance of taking care of current Park District assets. We have heard in community surveys over the years as well as anecdotally, that residents value our high-quality programs and facilities like our 138 parks (planned to become 140 in 2025) stretching across more than 2,400 acres of parkland. While Naperville has always been known for being active and sports-minded, the level of activity of residents overall has increased substantially since 2020-2021. We continue to
see these heightened levels of participation not only in many program areas, but also at both of our golf courses, during the summer at Centennial Beach, and in any season across our parks system through facility rentals and use in general. It’s a wonderful thing to see, but that also means that a key area of emphasis in our operations must be centered on maintaining and renovating these facilities over time. The challenges in this aspect lie in the continued inflation of the cost of materials and services in addition to managing longer delivery lead times. Despite those hurdles, in 2024, the District managed a lengthy list of community ribbon-cutting events not only to celebrate several renovated playgrounds, but we also improved ballfield #5 with a new synthetic turf infield at DuPage River Sports Complex, officially opened our newly renovated Rothermel Family Skate Facility, added the beautiful new Frank J. Rus pavilion to Knoch Knolls Park and dedicated a new practice facility to former park board commissioner Marie Todd at Naperbrook Golf Course.
2025 BUDGET 3
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