A decades-old shopping center in the western suburbs will be redeveloped and brought back to life as a new dining and entertainment district, a news release said, with as many as 10 new restaurants and more set to open over the next two years.<\/p>\n
The $53 million development, called Block 59 at the corner of Route 59 and Aurora Avenue in Naperville, is set to reconfigure and “reimagine” Heritage Square<\/a> and Westridge Court, which originally opened in 1990.<\/p>\n \u201cOur research indicated there was a gap in dining options on the west side of Naperville, with folks having to drive up to 20 miles for some of their favorite restaurants,\u201d Rich Dippolito, vice president of redevelopment at Brixmor Property Group said in the release. “This was matched by strong demand for restaurant space by best-in-class brands … leading us to reimagine the center in a new way.\u201c<\/p>\n Some of the beloved eateries set to open at the new restaurant hub include The Cheesecake Factory<\/a>, Stan’s Donuts, Yard House, Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Piccolo Buco by Cooper\u2019s Hawk, First Watch, Fresh Fin Poke, Crisp & Green and Velvet Taco, the release said. <\/p>\n The redeveloped space will also include an open-air plaza, developers said, with improved pedestrian walkways, updated restaurant patios, new LED lighting and public gathering spaces for events. <\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to create a place that reflects the Naperville community,\u201d Dippolito said. \u201cThe plaza offers a space where tenants and community groups can host fitness classes or performances.\u201d<\/p>\n The center is already anchored by popular retailers, including The Fresh Market grocery store, Ulta Beauty, a Hollywood Palms Cinema movie theater and a Wayfair Outlet, which opened in October of 2024<\/a>. <\/p>\n Construction on the project began in July of 2024, the release said, with the demolition of two underutilized buildings. Some new dining, including Shack Shake, have already opened at the center, with an 8,700 square-foot Cheesecake Factory restaurant set to open June 17.<\/p>\n \u201cBlock 59 is one of Naperville\u2019s premier new projects coming online this year and next,\u201d Mayor Scott Wehrli said in a statement. \u201cAs the number two dining destination in the State of Illinois, this project is completely transforming the corner of Aurora Avenue and Route 59 into Naperville\u2019s \u2018gateway of today,\u2019 by giving our residents and visitors the dining and entertainment experiences they\u2019re looking for. This is a huge win for our city\u2019s residents, visitors, economy and for Indian Prairie School District 204, as commercial development supports our school districts\u2019 revenues. I hope everyone will come out and enjoy the places already open and those soon to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Other suburban shopping and dining centers are also seeing major redevelopments, including Westfield Old Orchard in Skokie<\/a>, Golf Mill in Niles<\/a>, Stratford Square in Bloomingdale<\/a> and the new “APEX” district in Aurora<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nbcchicago.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A decades-old shopping center in the western suburbs will be redeveloped and brought back to life as a new dining and entertainment district, a news release said, with as many as 10 new restaurants and more set to open over the next two years. The $53 million development, called Block 59 at the corner of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2312751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[357341],"class_list":["post-2312750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-naperville"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/New-dining-entertainment-hub-coming-to-Naperville-as-Block-59.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2312750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2312750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2312750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2312752,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2312750\/revisions\/2312752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2312750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2312750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2312750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"](\"https:\/\/media.nbcchicago.com\/2025\/04\/Brixmor-Block-59-Naperville-IL-Central-Plaza.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&resize=218%2C123\")
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