11-Mar-16 – The last three rooms on the Chicago Riverwalk will open in October, says Chicago Department of Transportation. Phase 3 of construction, that started on June 29, 2015, and continued all winter, has been relatively uneventful.

The city is still negotiating a contract with a “master operator” of the Riverwalk, someone who will manage day-to-day operations. There has been no official word about who has been selected, or what concessions will be offered this year.

Of the 14 concessions that operated on the Riverwalk last year, all but one, WanderBikes, are still in business but none have made any announcements about returning to the Riverwalk this year. Last November, about 40 people attending a meeting at City Hall for prospective concession operators were told 2016 would be “a clean slate, a fresh start” for the Riverwalk.

Proposals were due on December 2, 2015. The city’s Department of Fleet and Facility Management is currently in the process of evaluating, recommending, and negotiating contracts with concession operators.

Phase 3 is stretching the Riverwalk from LaSalle Street west to Lake Street. It will add three rooms, Water Plaza, Jetty, and Boardwalk. Water Plaza, between LaSalle and Wells, with its shallow fountain and generous sunlight, is designed as a place for kids to play.

Jetty (above), between Wells and Franklin, will be “a teaching location,” says Jenelle Hill, a civil engineer for CDOT, with plants native to the area and, hanging below piers, fish habitats that will “revive the fish population in the area.”

Vendor spaces will be in the back, and construction on them, she says, has started.

Between Franklin and Lake, Boardwalk (above), says Hill, will be developed, at least for now, into a lawn “for people to sit and relax.”

It will have a ramp that connects the Riverwalk to Upper Wacker Drive.

(Above) On the Chicago Riverwalk west of Franklin Street on February 16, a large steel walkway is carried into place by the crane at right. The barge was moved about 50 feet and the walkway, allowing workers to get to the barge, had to be repositioned. The two brown posts on either side of the barge are the anchors. They have to be lifted up by the crane, pulling on a cable attached to the post. When the anchor is lifted, the tugboat at lower left pulls the barge to its new spot. In the distance, the brown columns, called H piles, will support the ramp up to Wacker Drive.