Rennovations to Moser Tower and Millennium Carillon to be completed in May
Renovations to Moser Tower are set to finish in May 2023. The tower, which houses the Millennium Carillon, have been under construction since 2021.
March 1, 2023
Renovations to the Moser Tower and Millennium Carillon are in their final stages, with a goal to be completed in May.
“The pavers are 90% done and the coping stones are done,” said Bill Novack, Director of Transportation Engineering and Development for the City of Naperville. “A lot of it is clean up.”
The Millennium Carillon is an instrument with a set of 72 bells that are rung with a keyboard. It is located at the top of the Moser Tower. The Moser Tower and Millennium Carillon were constructed through donations from the Naperville Millennium Carillon Foundation.
“It was a group of people that wanted to do something great for the city,” Novack said. “So they had a vision, and they raised millions of dollars and started building it.”
The original construction of the tower began in 1997, but was abandoned in 2001 due to a lack of funds.
“In 2006, the city stepped in […] we got our own contractor and they finished the work,” Novack said. “It was built in two stages.”
In 2013, the Naperville Riverwalk Commission started to assess the tower’s state.
“When the report came in, it said for a structure that’s 15 years old, [the Moser Tower is] not in the best shape,” Novack said. There was a lot of deterioration.”
Due to that deterioration, the Riverwalk Commission ordered a $2 million contract for renovations in 2021. Construction was delayed in 2022.
“We were all set to put on the [field applied finish] last year but in the spring, it got really hot really fast and the [worker] couldn’t get in here fast enough,” Novack said. “He cannot put that material on if it’s above 75 degrees, so we ended up having to wait out the summer. We ran into supply chain issues too, with the coping stones.”
After renovations are finished, future inspections are planned to ensure that the Moser Tower and Millennium Carillon stay in good condition.
“We’ll probably be doing drone inspections every three years,” Novack said. “It will need small renovations now and then but nothing of the magnitude of what we had to do in 2021 and 2022.”
Katie • Mar 13, 2023 at 2:25 pm
I think I saw a few workers go on strike a couple years ago. It’s a cool looking tower. I would love to go inside the tower and hear the Carilloner play before I graduate high school.
A Carillon is not exactly a keyboard, but has many levers that are arranged like that of a keyboard, each one attached to a string that ring a bell when the lever is pushed down.