Bolingbrook Adds Acres for Preservation, Expands Greenway

The Village of Bolingbrook recently acquired 26.5 acres along the DuPage River, preserving forest, savanna, and wetland habitats from almost certain development. The "Hoffman parcel," zoned for residential development but never disturbed, is located on the West Chicago Moraine along the DuPage River's East Branch. The Forest Preserve District of Will County helped the village apply for grants, which garnered $1,777,000 from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources' Open Land Trust and $200,000 from the Conservation Foundation's Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation grant.

Bolingbrook's Village Administrator James Boan says the Hoffman parcel will remain undeveloped except for the expansion of the Bolingbrook Park District's DuPage River Greenway recreational trail. Lakewood Homes Inc. recently donated 22 acres of adjacent land that, with the Hoffman parcel, will close a two-mile gap in the greenway.

The Hoffman parcel includes an oak savanna; an upland forest with red, white, and bur oak, hackberry, basswood, and ironwood; a floodplain forest with green ash, elms, silver maple, and box elder; and a wet meadow with reed canary grass (a pesky invasive), dogwoods, and sand bar willow.

— Emily Schafer