Buying a Home in Naperville, IL: The Riverwalk, Moser Tower, a Quarry Beach and a City That Runs Its Own Electric Utility

The wagons came for the county records at night. Naperville had been the DuPage County seat since 1839, and when Wheaton won a narrow vote to take the seat away, Naperville contested the result and would not hand the records over. So Wheaton men, many of them Civil War veterans, came into town and carried the records off in what became known as the Midnight Raid, usually dated December 1868. The records Naperville had hidden were later placed with the Cook County recorder and lost in the Chicago Fire of 1871. Naper Settlement's Meeting House tour still tells the story.

Naperville is Illinois' third-largest city, about 153,000 people on the West Branch of the DuPage River, with the Riverwalk and North Central College at the heart of its downtown and new homes approved on its south side.

I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in Illinois through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. I work from Bluffton, South Carolina, so everything on this page comes from public sources I checked as of October 31, 2026, and I name each source as I go. The wider picture, from Cook County's assessment cycle to the I-294 rebuild, is on the Chicago area page. This page stays in Naperville.

The Riverwalk, built by volunteers for the 1981 sesquicentennial

Joseph Naper led a party from Ashtabula County, Ohio, to the DuPage River in 1831, and his family joined him that June. In 1979 a committee formed to choose a lasting gift for the 150th anniversary of his arrival. The Sesquicentennial Commission chose a path along the river, and volunteers and private donors built the first two blocks, between Main and Webster streets. The donors were thanked with medallions, and many of those were later replaced by commemorative bricks. Positively Naperville's history of the Riverwalk dates the dedication to September 7, 1981.

Since then the Riverwalk has been extended west from Eagle Street to Jefferson Avenue, and out from the Washington Street bridge to the Hillside Road bridge. It is still growing. This summer construction started on a new Riverwalk park at 430 S. Washington St., on a vacant riverside parcel that North Central College owns, just north of the rebuilt bridge. Council awarded that contract to Baumgartner Construction in May 2026, according to the Daily Herald in June. The same report describes the south entrance to downtown reshaped by the new bridge and a revived fountain in Fredenhagen Park.

If you drive across downtown, you will use that bridge. Work on it started in spring 2023, and the new Washington Street bridge opened to all lanes in summer 2025. The city's project page calls it the only north-south route in Naperville that crosses both the BNSF tracks and the West Branch of the DuPage River.

The city updated its Riverwalk 2031 Master Plan on December 10, 2025, and dedicated it to the people who built those first two blocks. 2031 is Naperville's bicentennial.

Seventy-two bells, a quarry beach and a band older than the Civil War

Moser Tower stands 160 feet tall and holds the Millennium Carillon, 72 bells that run from about 10 pounds to six tons across six octaves. Its first concert was in June 2000, and because its bells span six octaves it is what the Park District calls a Grand Carillon, one of only a few in the world. The Naperville Park District runs it, and tours came back in July 2023 after a renovation that closed the tower in 2021.

Centennial Beach, at 500 W. Jackson Ave., is a swimming beach in a former quarry. The land was bought in 1931 to mark Naperville's 100th birthday, after Judge Win Knoch proposed buying the Von Oven property. That was a 45-acre parcel with two abandoned quarries, on what was then the western edge of town. The Park District, organized in 1966, took the beach over from the City in 1969, according to the Park District's beach history.

The Naperville Municipal Band traces itself to July 4, 1859, when 15 men played for a picnic at Burlington Park. Every summer it still plays free Concerts in the Park on Thursday nights at 7:30 in Central Park, at the Elmer Koerner Memorial Bandshell. The band's own history counts four bandstands over the years.

Naper Settlement, at 523 S. Webster St., is an outdoor history museum founded in 1969 on land that Caroline Martin Mitchell left to the city when she died in 1936. Its visitor center is a re-creation of the Pre-Emption House, an 1834 hotel at Main Street and Chicago Avenue that was torn down in 1946. North Central College has been downtown since 1870, when residents put up eight acres and money to build Old Main and bring the school over from Plainfield, as the college tells its history.

Labor Day on Jackson Avenue

The Last Fling started in 1966, when Rick Motta, inspired by the 1955 film Picnic, proposed a Labor Day festival and parade. The Chamber of Commerce board put him in charge, and the first festivities were in the Centennial Beach parking area. The Naperville Jaycees took it over in 1981, it moved to Jackson Avenue in 1985, and it marked 60 years in 2025, as Positively Naperville's short history tells it. It is the Jaycees' largest fundraiser, and the proceeds go to nonprofits in Naperville and around DuPage County. This year it ran from Friday, September 4 through Monday, September 7, free, with the Labor Day parade Monday morning at 10.

If you have seen Ribfest in an older guide to Naperville, that festival has ended. The Exchange Club of Naperville held the first one in 1988 on Rotary Hill along the Riverwalk and ran it for about 30 years, mostly at Knoch Park. In late July 2024 the club announced it was ending Ribfest for good, citing costs after the pandemic, as NCTV17 reported.

New building on the south side and along Route 59

Frontier Sports Complex, in south Naperville near Neuqua Valley High School, is where the next big public building goes. On March 17, 2026, voters approved the Naperville Park District's $120 million bond for an indoor community activity center there. It will have three indoor pools: an eight-lane lap pool, an activity pool with slides and spray features, and a warm-water therapy pool. That makes it the district's first indoor aquatic facility.

Two new neighborhoods were approved in October 2025 on land that is still in unincorporated Will County and is to be annexed into the city. Everly Trace, by M/I Homes, is 68 homes at 111th Street and Cedar Drive: 42 three-story rowhomes and 26 two-story townhomes. The Reserves of Saddle Creek is 14 single-family homes on eight acres at Book Road and Clearwater Lane, as NCTV17 reported.

Book Road is also where crews have been laying WaterLink, the DuPage Water Commission's 30-mile Lake Michigan water main to Oswego, Montgomery and Yorkville. It begins in Naperville, and about six miles of it are inside city limits. Book Road was closed between 75th and 87th streets this summer, and the stretch from Rickert to 75th reopened on August 28, 2026. The city's WaterLink page follows the work, which is due to finish in 2028.

Out on Route 59, Block 59 is the dining district made from the old Westridge Court center, which opened in 1990. Brixmor's $53 million reconfiguration is set to finish in 2026, and its anchors are already open. Shake Shack opened in March 2025, The Cheesecake Factory in June 2025, and Yard House held its grand opening on November 23, 2025, according to Brixmor and NCTV17. First Watch opened its second Naperville location there too.

Downtown, the city owns or leases roughly 13 to 14.5 acres along 5th Avenue near the Naperville Metra station, depending on the source, and that land is still unbuilt. In 2025 a ULI Chicago panel recommended that the city hire a consultant to draw up a master plan as a first step, and the City Manager said council would decide the next steps. I found no 2026 record of council setting a timeline, and the city's 5th Avenue page is the place to watch.

Trains, Edward Hospital and the two school districts

Naperville has two Metra BNSF stations, and the busier one is on the border with Aurora. In Metra's BNSF figures from before COVID, Route 59 station was the busiest of all Metra's stations outside downtown Chicago, and the Naperville station downtown was second.

Endeavor Health Edward Hospital is one of the city's largest employers. Endeavor opened its $67 million Cardiovascular Center on the Edward campus, reported in February 2025. NCTV17 reported that the state review board has approved a $29 million expansion of the Edward Heart Hospital, with a 10-bed cardiovascular ICU and two operating rooms, targeted for late 2027. Nalco Water, an Ecolab company, has its headquarters in Naperville at 1601 W. Diehl Road.

Two school districts serve the city, and each one runs every grade from kindergarten through high school: Naperville Community Unit School District 203 and Indian Prairie School District 204. District 204 also reaches into parts of Aurora, Bolingbrook and Plainfield. District 204 voters approved $420 million in bonds in November 2024. About $125 million of that work ran this past summer, including artificial turf at all three of its high schools. NCTV17 reported that the Neuqua Valley renovation is budgeted at $96.0 million. The district that serves a home depends on its exact address, so please confirm it with the district itself.

DuPage or Will County, your township and your tax bill

The northern part of Naperville is in DuPage County and the southern part is in Will County, and that decides which county sends your property tax bill. Inside each county, Washington Street is the township line, and the township is who assesses your home, with the county's Supervisor of Assessments above it. So two Naperville homes on either side of Washington Street can have different assessors, and two on either side of the county line get their tax bills from different counties. The city's townships page has the map, including the small pieces in Winfield and Milton townships. The county's property records will show you which county and township a parcel is in. DuPage County's 2026 installments were due June 1 and September 1, and Will County's first installment was also due June 1.

If the home you like is one of the older ones near downtown, it may be inside the Naperville Historic District, listed on the National Register in 1977 and roughly bounded by Julian, Highland, Chicago, Jackson, Eagle and 5th. A separate local historic district, designated by City Council in 1986, takes in part of the North Central College campus and the 19th- and early 20th-century homes around it. Please ask the city whether an address is in the local district, and what that means for any work you have in mind, before you make an offer.

Who pays the transfer tax in Naperville?

In Naperville, you pay for the city's transfer stamp. Naperville is a home-rule city, which lets it set its own transfer tax and decide who pays it, and its ordinance puts it on your side of the closing. The rate is $1.50 per $500 of the sale price, or $3 per $1,000, and the city's transfer tax page sets out how the stamp is bought. Who pays a city or village stamp varies from town to town in Illinois, so in Naperville it belongs in your cash to close from the very first estimate. I go through how village and city stamps work in buying a home in an Illinois village.

A City of Naperville bill for electric, water and wastewater

Naperville has owned its electric utility since 1899, and it serves more than 63,000 customers today. Rates are set by city ordinance, and the city buys wholesale power through the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency under a contract that runs through 2035. A home in the city gets one City of Naperville utility bill for electric, water and wastewater, and ComEd does not send one. In 2026 the city studied selling the utility, with ComEd the likely buyer. At a September 28 workshop, council members unanimously rejected a sale and asked staff to study two other ways of buying power, with findings due in summer 2027, as the Daily Herald reported.

The water is Lake Michigan water, bought through the DuPage Water Commission and drawn through Chicago's Jardine plant. It has come that way since the Commission reached full operation on May 1, 1992. Before that the city drew from a network of 25 wells, and some are kept on emergency standby, according to the city's water supply page. The wastewater charge carries a phosphorus surcharge that pays for upgrades at the Springbrook treatment plant. A lender does not put the utility bill in your mortgage payment, but it is part of what the home costs each month, so a year of the seller's City of Naperville bills is worth asking for.

The DuPage River and the flood map

The West Branch of the DuPage River runs right through downtown, and some years it comes up onto the Riverwalk. Heavy rain over the Fourth of July weekend in 2026 sent it over its banks, and the Illinois DNR closed both the East and West branches to boaters, as the Daily Herald reported. Positively Naperville's file photos show the Riverwalk flooding in 2008, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019 as well.

DuPage County's stormwater and floodplain ordinance covers the West Branch in Naperville, so a plan to build onto a home near the river goes through those rules. The city points residents to its stormwater page for them. I could not confirm from a public source which Naperville streets are in FEMA's high-risk flood areas along the West Branch, the East Branch and Spring Brook. So please look up the specific address on FEMA's flood map before you make an offer. If a home is in FEMA's high-risk flood area, the lender will require flood insurance, and that premium becomes part of your monthly payment.

Putting a Naperville purchase together

The same 2026 conforming and FHA loan limits apply in DuPage and Will counties, so the county line does not change how large a loan can be before it becomes a jumbo loan. The limits are in the box below this page. Your property taxes, homeowners insurance, any flood insurance and any association dues go into the monthly payment a lender qualifies you on. If the home is in a community with a homeowners association, the dues come from the association's own documents.

The city stamp and the attorney's fee are part of your cash to close instead. Every Naperville purchase also goes through the Illinois steps, attorney review and the radon disclosure among them, and the Illinois page explains how attorneys and a title company share an Illinois closing. Pre-approval in Illinois covers what the letter is based on. Once I have your documents, I can tell you what you are approved for before you start touring homes near the Riverwalk or out by Frontier.

If you already own in Naperville and are weighing a new loan, refinancing in Illinois is the place to start.

Once you're ready, you can run your numbers for a Naperville purchase and see rates for your scenario and Illinois closing costs without a credit pull. Choose the rate option that works best for you, knowing you can change it later, and the application opens from there. If you would rather talk it through first, I'm happy to.

Nothing here is a loan approval, a denial or a commitment to lend, and it is not tax advice. The assessment on a specific parcel is set by its township assessor and county, so please confirm it with those offices.

Common questions

Is Naperville in DuPage County or Will County?

Both. The northern part of the city is in DuPage County and the southern part is in Will County. Inside each county, Washington Street is the township boundary, and the county's property records show which county and township a parcel is in.

Does Naperville have ComEd?

No. The City of Naperville has owned its electric utility since 1899, and a home in the city gets one city bill for electric, water and wastewater. In 2026 the city studied selling the utility, and in September council rejected a sale and turned to other ways of buying power.

Where does Naperville's water come from?

Lake Michigan. The city buys it through the DuPage Water Commission, drawn through Chicago's Jardine plant, and has done so from 1992 on. Before that the city used a network of wells, and some are still kept for emergency standby.

Which Metra stations serve Naperville?

Two, both on the BNSF line. The Naperville station is downtown, and the Route 59 station is on the border with Aurora. In Metra's figures from before COVID, Route 59 was the busiest Metra station outside downtown Chicago, and the Naperville station was second.

When is the Last Fling?

Labor Day weekend, on Jackson Avenue. The Naperville Jaycees run it, it began in 1966, and the 2026 festival ran from Friday, September 4 through Labor Day, with the parade on Monday morning.

Is Ribfest still held in Naperville?

No. The Exchange Club of Naperville ran Ribfest from 1988, mostly at Knoch Park, and announced in July 2024 that it was ending the festival for good. The Last Fling on Labor Day weekend and the Municipal Band's summer Thursday concerts in Central Park carry on.