The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County is pursuing a property abutting Pratt’s Wayne Woods.
Courtesy of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County
Pratt’s Wayne Woods near Wayne is the largest forest preserve in DuPage County and prized for its diversity of habitats.
Forest preserve leaders now have set their sights on buying an adjacent property that is noteworthy in its own right.
The roughly 43-acre tract features old-growth oaks. By the district’s count, there are some 240 trees on the site, on the north side of North Avenue, a bit west of Route 59.
“It is critical habitat that’s already intact, would not need, necessarily, heavy restoration, and obviously, once those trees are gone, they’re gone forever,” Forest Preserve President Daniel Hebreard said.
Forest preserve commissioners on Tuesday authorized district officials to negotiate for the acquisition of the property abutting Pratt’s Wayne Woods.
Given “that it’s adjacent to an existing high-quality forest preserve property and that this property itself is also high quality, it’s an opportunity to extend these rare ecosystems out and make it even larger,” said Brook McDonald, president and CEO of The Conservation Foundation.
Oaks are referred to as keystone species. Hundreds of important insects, McDonald explained, rely on oaks for their life cycle. Those insects provide food for birds and animals.
“Oaks are part of our remnant natural history here in DuPage County, so wanting to preserve oak ecosystems is all part of all of our mission to help protect our natural heritage here in DuPage County,” McDonald said.
With about a half mile of frontage on North Avenue, the property also would provide a “substantial buffer for the existing preserve land,” according to board documents. It’s currently held in a land trust.
“The wetlands that are located there at Pratt’s Wayne Woods are of extremely high quality, and that’s what attracts a lot of the rare plants and animals to Pratt’s Wayne Woods,” McDonald said.
Also Tuesday, the board voted to authorize the closing on another property — Gladstone Ridge along Leask Lane near Wheaton. The district is expected to pay $12 million for the roughly 35-acre site, a home for horses for decades. The closing date is set for no later than Nov. 29, or sooner by agreement, according to the contract.
The Bolger family is preparing to sell the Gladstone Ridge property along Leask Lane near Wheaton to the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.
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The district has identified approximately 250 acres that could be preserved as open space.
“That still leaves over 200 for us, and then these 43 would be a really fantastic addition ecologically,” Hebreard said.
Both moves come on the heels of voters approving a property tax increase to raise more than $17 million in additional annual revenue for the district.
“The annual increase that the residents just supported us with, it’s not enough to necessarily purchase every single property, but it may help us buy something that’s a little bit less expensive,” Hebreard said.
Sixty-three percent of voters in this month’s election agreed to the tax increase.
“With such a resounding victory … I think it gives the forest preserve district a clear mandate to go and preserve as much as they can moving forward,” McDonald said.
In 2023, the district sent its owner a letter of interest to acquire the property.
· Daily Herald staff writer Susan Sarkauskas contributed to this report