LOCATION: The Aurora, Ill., downtown riverfront

PROPOSED USE: outdoor music venue, visitors center, botanical garden, nature education center, public market, pedestrian bridge linking east and west banks of the Fox River

SITE BACKGROUND: Portions of the park site were once home to manufacturing, automobile repair and a railroad line.

SIZE: 30 acres

PARTNERS: Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity; Illinois Environmental Protection Agency; Terry Guen Design Associates; Muller & Muller Architects Ltd.; City of Aurora; Shaw Environmental Inc.; Christopher B. Burke Engineering; Schuler & Shook; Talaske, Oudolf & Diblik; Benjamin & Associates; Ed Uhlir; LCTD Group; Stephen Friedman & Associates

SYNOPSIS: Aurora became the first city to receive grant funding ($700,000) under the Illinois River Edge Redevelopment program, which helped pay for testing and cleanup of the brownfield sites. The tentative timeline is to have the site preparation work (utility relocations, environmental cleanup, shoreline restoration and some grading work) under way in 2009 and completed in 2010, and to construct park and venue elements in 2011.