At 11 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, the Naperville Park District will open sealed bids for the Nike Sports Complex Improvements at its administration building at 320 W. Jackson Ave. and read them aloud. The district expects to award the contract in December. For the park just west of Indian Hill, opening the bids starts the process of turning a new playground, water play, a loop trail and turf infields from a concept drawing into a signed construction contract.
The plan has been public for more than two years, and its timeline has moved back each time it was published. Contractors' bids are the first part of the process that comes with real prices, and an awarded contract would be the first to come with a real schedule.
Three schedules for the same park
In July 2024, the Park District sent nearby households a letter describing "extensive site improvements throughout 2025 and 2026." When the state grant came through in January 2026, the timeline became late 2026 through 2028. The Nike Sports Complex page on the district's site still shows that sentence. Further down the same page, the "Upcoming Improvements/Construction" box gives an anticipated schedule of 2027 through 2028.
| When it was published | Where | Construction window stated |
|---|---|---|
| July 15, 2024 | Park District outreach letter | 2025 and 2026 |
| January 2026 | Nike Sports Complex project page, grant announcement text | Late 2026 through 2028 |
| Current | Same page, "Upcoming Improvements" box | 2027 through 2028 |
The district's 2026–2028 three-year financial plan uses the latest version. It budgets $350,000 in 2026 for design and Phase I ballfield work, $2,925,000 for Phase I site improvements in 2027 and $975,000 for Phase II in 2028. Those three amounts add up to $4.25 million. The district's own estimate for Nike site improvements is the same figure.
So the plan now points to 2027 for most of the visible work and 2028 for the rest. No opening date has been announced, and neither has any field or parking closure schedule. Those details usually come after a contractor is under contract, and the earliest that can happen is December.
What the winning bidder will build
The bid advertisement lists the work in contractor's terms.
- Asphalt and concrete paving
- Synthetic turf
- Poured-in-place surfacing
- Playground equipment
- Splash pad equipment
- Wood fencing
- A picnic shelter and a shade sail
- Electrical, underdrainage, landscaping and lawn restoration
The project page describes the same list in park terms. Ballfields 1, 2 and 3 get synthetic turf infields. There will be a new 10-foot-wide asphalt loop trail, a renovated playground with water play features, a challenge course area, a new shelter overlooking the existing cricket field, and native restoration areas with interpretive signage. The 2024 letter adds a detail about the playground. The current equipment will be replaced entirely, and the play surface will become poured-in-place rubber. At a June 2024 open house, the district asked interested residents to help choose the new playground equipment, water play features and challenge course pieces.
Upland Design Ltd. is the design firm handling bidder questions. A non-mandatory pre-bid meeting was set for Oct. 29 at the Park Support Building, 1520 N. Mill St., inside the complex.
Why the water play is the headline
The splash pad is the part of the plan aimed most directly at north Naperville. When the Daily Herald covered the plan in July 2025, the district's splash pads were at the 95th Street Community Plaza at Frontier Sports Complex and at Wolf's Crossing. Both are on the south side.
Eric Shutes, the district's director of planning, framed the project that way in a district podcast episode quoted in the same Daily Herald story. "It's really nice to bring those water play features to the north side of town, as well as the new picnic shelter overlooking the existing cricket pitch area," he said. He added that cricket players had asked for more shade and seating near the pitch over the years.
The ballfield work has a practical motive too. Shutes told the podcast that synthetic turf infields provide a more consistent surface, "especially after heavy rains," and are "much, much easier for our staff to maintain." The new loop trail comes from the district's interest and opinion surveys, which the Daily Herald reported consistently rank walking and biking trails as the top outdoor amenity.
How the money came together
Part of the delay comes down to funding. The district first sought a state Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development grant in 2024. NCTV17 reported in May 2024 on an earlier concept that included two turf infields and possible court work. The district gathered more public comment in summer 2025 and resubmitted ahead of the Sept. 30, 2025 deadline.
On Jan. 14, 2026, the state awarded Naperville a $600,000 OSLAD grant for Nike Sports Complex. OSLAD is a state-local cost-sharing program, so the grant covers part of the work, not all of it. Against the district's estimate of roughly $4.25 million, the grant pays for about one-seventh of the project.
For a while, Nike was also tied to the district's referendum planning. The district first listed six capital projects for possible bond funding, and Nike site improvements were one of them. After a survey of registered voter households, the March 2026 referendum was cut to two items, a community activity center at Frontier Sports Complex and open-space acquisition. Nike went ahead on its own track. The October bid notice says the project is financed in part with OSLAD funds.
The other work budgeted for the same park
The OSLAD project is only part of the money the capital plan assigns to Nike over three years. The same plan lists separate line items:
- 2026: Renovate the 8 tennis courts, $660,000, and the 2 basketball courts, $200,000.
- 2027: Renovate the sports lighting to LED everywhere except the pickleball court area, $950,000, and renovate the parking lots at the ballfield hub and along Mill Street as needed, $97,838.
- 2028: Replace the synthetic turf field, last renovated in 2020, $1,007,727.
These are budget lines in a planning document, not finished or contracted projects. Together, they show that 2027 is the heavy year at Nike. Phase I of the playground, water play and trail project, the lighting conversion and the parking lot work all sit in that year's column. A family heading to the playground and a softball league heading to the lit fields will both be using a park with active construction for much of the next two seasons.
The district also lists the expected ongoing costs once the improvements are built. They include about $18,750 a year in added maintenance and $24,000 in water utilities, partly offset by an estimated $15,000 in new field-rental revenue.
What stays the same for now
Nothing in the bid closes anything this winter, and the district has not published a closure plan. These features are in place today:
- Pickleball and tennis: 4 dedicated pickleball courts, plus 8 lit tennis courts lined for pickleball. Players bring their own nets.
- The existing trail: a paved north-south path that loops around the athletic field, reaches the pickleball courts and connects to the sidewalks on Diehl Road and North Mill Street, with 6 fitness stations along the route.
- Cold-weather amenities: ice rinks are among the complex's listed amenities, along with basketball, cricket and picnic shelters.
The new loop trail will be added alongside the walking route that already exists. The cricket pitch stays where it is and gets a shelter facing it. The playground is the one existing feature the plan replaces outright, so it is the piece most likely to be fenced off once Phase I starts.
For updates, the district names Allan Barajas as the project contact on the Nike Sports Complex page. It says new information will be posted there. After the Nov. 5 bid opening, the next milestone is the contract award, which the district expects in December. No construction start date has been published yet.
If you're near Nike and thinking about how two years of park work could affect a sale or a purchase over the 2027 and 2028 seasons, the team at Bill White Homes is glad to talk through timing with you. Get in Touch.
