LINCOLN SQUARE — It's called the Albany Park Diversion Tunnel, aimed at alleviating flooding woes in Albany Park and North Park, so residents of Lincoln Square can be forgiven if they haven't been following the project's progress.
But when the tunnel's final design was revealed last week, details emerged that the east side of River Park would bear the brunt of the tunnel's construction chaos, which is expected to begin this summer and last through 2017.
The mile-long tunnel originates in Eugene Field Park and terminates in River Park, where an "outlet shaft" will be built just east of the North Shore Channel and south of Foster Avenue, in a strip of land wedged between a baseball diamond and the park's bike path.
Rendering of outlet shaft. DNAinfo/Patty Wetli
The site will be closed off to the public during the two-year construction period. The bike path will be rerouted and the soccer and baseball fields will be off limits.
"We're going to mess this area up," said the project's chief engineer, Vasile Jurac of the Chicago Department of Transportation.
The outlet shaft is where excess stormwater will exit the tunnel, having been diverted from the Chicago River upstream during flood conditions.
Creation of the 150-foot-deep outlet shaft will require blasting through rock, according to Jurac.
Nearby residents will be notified in advance of any explosions, which sound as loud as fireworks and cause noticeable vibrations, he said.
Because the area surrounding the outlet shaft is larger than the inlet area to the west, River Park is also where construction equipment will be staged, and the park will serve as home base for a massive tunnel boring machine.
The boring machine will be lowered down the shaft and chew its way west underneath Foster Avenue, 50-75 feet a day. The dirt and rock the machine eats up will be carted back to the surface at the outlet shaft.
Jurac said CDOT will encourage the project's contractor (still to be chosen) to ship the detritus down river via barge rather than send it off site via truck, in order to minimize traffic tie-ups on Foster.
Once work on the tunnel is complete, the plan calls for a new soccer field and regulation-sized baseball field to be built in River Park.
A permanent control building will also be constructed at the outlet shaft, the design of which is expected to mimic River Park's field house.
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