On a summer evening in McHenry, Illinois, the Fox River does most of the talking. Boats idle up to the McHenry Riverwalk Shops, now in their fourth season, while families drift along a Riverwalk that stretches unbroken from Green Street to Weber Park. At Miller Point, a concert crowd settles in as the light goes gold over the water. A decade ago, much of this scene did not exist. The downtown was tired, the riverfront underused, and investment had gone looking elsewhere.
What changed was not luck. It was a deliberate campaign to rebuild the city from its center outward, guided by 25-year planning horizons and a city hall that treats growth as something to be shaped rather than chased.
A Plan with a Purpose
In 2024, the city adopted Vision 2050 and McHenry Downtown 2050, twin frameworks that lay out where the community should grow and, just as importantly, where it should not. “The land use patterns are logical, and growth is intentional,” says Doug Martin, Director of Economic Development. “We’re not locating commercial on every corner, and we’re locating residential where it’s appropriate.”
The planning process surfaced a hard truth many suburbs prefer to ignore: McHenry had zoned far more commercial land than the market could support, and the vacancies showed it. Rather than doubling down, the city adjusted its land-use matrix to reflect reality. “We’re growing intentionally with a plan, not growing just to grow,” Martin explains. “It’s our vision for the community and downtown specifically.”
That discipline extends to the city’s edges. Growth is concentrated in infill pockets to the south, west, and east, where utilities can reasonably be extended, rather than sprawling past the boundaries. The city also meets regularly with its taxing bodies and school districts so new development never lands as a surprise. “With those relationships, we’re able to grow at a rate where it’s not hurting the taxpayers of the community,” says Mayor Wayne Jett, who has made managed growth a hallmark of his nine years in office.
Downtown as the Heart
Ask Mayor Jett where the turnaround began, and the answer is immediate. “My main focus is 100 percent downtown,” he says. “Downtown, when I got in, was very rundown. People weren’t investing at all. We really needed to get the density downtown built up.”
The results are visible block by block. Miller Point gives the city a signature riverfront park, the completed Riverwalk connects Green Street to Weber Park, and the Riverwalk Shops have become a thriving incubator along the Fox, with the city working to graduate successful vendors into brick-and-mortar storefronts downtown. Preservation gets equal billing with progress: Landmark School, recently vacated, is now protected under private ownership, one of several historic structures the city has moved to safeguard.
The balancing act between growth and small-town character is a constant conversation, and not everyone agrees. “You get some people that don’t want to see any more houses. They want to keep farmland,” Mayor Jett acknowledges. “But at the end of the day, the majority wants to see growth. The majority also wants to see new businesses.” His answer is to stay unusually accessible and let resident feedback shape where the city focuses.
A Concierge for Business
McHenry backs its business-friendly reputation with structure. In 2025, the city adopted an economic development strategy aligned with its comprehensive and downtown plans, formalizing its commitment to attracting, retaining, and expanding businesses, with incentives when warranted. “I’d say we are kind of a business concierge,” Martin says. “We cater to small businesses and really address their needs.”
A tiered business improvement grant program puts money behind that promise, offering up to $25,000 for facade work, interior improvements, and code upgrades such as accessible restrooms. For corridors that need deeper reinvestment, McHenry is creating two new TIF districts: one along Richmond Road and another along Route 120, Front Street, and Main Street. Larger retail gets its own sustained courtship, with city officials attending the International Council of Shopping Centers conference in Las Vegas each year. “We’re maybe not a primary market, but we’re constantly reaching out, knowing they’ll come out to us eventually,” Martin notes.
The manufacturing base rounds out the strategy. Partnerships with the McHenry County Economic Development Corporation, the Manufacturing Pathways Consortium, McHenry County College, and the McHenry County Workforce Network support primary employment, and a transitions program prepares entrepreneurs to acquire established companies whose owners are retiring, keeping those businesses rooted in the community.
Housing for Every Chapter
The city’s biggest recent housing win sits on Main Street, where Taylor Place Apartments delivered 50 units of workforce housing through a public-private partnership that drew investment from the city, county, state, and federal governments. “Market rate apartment rentals are extremely high, and we have a very large housing shortage,” Martin observes.
More is coming. Full Circle Communities, which built 25 units for people with disabilities and veterans on the edge of downtown around 2017, is seeking approval for 10 more units on adjacent land. A 40-unit affordable senior community across from City Hall opens this year. Downtown, the city has spent years assembling parcels for a premier mixed-use development: roughly 87 apartments, 25 townhomes along Boone Creek with boat access, and about 10,000 square feet of retail with outdoor dining along the waterway.
“The site should be developed relatively soon,” Mayor Jett adds. “It’s something we’ve been wanting to work on for nine years.”
Looking further ahead, McHenry is consolidating its zoning ordinance, subdivision ordinance, and municipal code into a single unified development ordinance, and it is studying missing-middle housing as a way to add gentle density on infill lots without changing a neighborhood’s character.
The Unglamorous Work Underneath
Infrastructure rarely makes headlines, but it consumes much of the city’s attention and budget. A state mandate requires that all lead water service lines be replaced by 2029, a roughly $3 million obligation for which the city is pursuing grants to help cover. Roads have been a defining commitment of the Jett administration. “When I got in, we were about $50 million behind on roads,” Mayor Jett recalls. The city invested around $2 million annually for years and has pushed that figure to $3 million, guided by independent pavement ratings and a practical eye for bundling nearby streets into single projects.
A 20-year capital investment strategy, reprioritized by the council annually, governs equipment and infrastructure spending, and the city is recalibrating its base fees to maintain more than $500 million in assets. Annual sewer lining keeps problems from compounding underground.
Downtown, the infrastructure work doubles as placemaking. A rebuilt Venice Avenue now carries new sidewalks connecting Miller Point to Green Street, and a pedestrian walkway threads between buildings. This year, Riverside Drive gets a full streetscape overhaul, converting to one-way from Route 120 to Pearl Street with rebuilt utilities and a more pedestrian-friendly design, aided by an $800,000 grant. The city is also negotiating with IDOT to extend the Riverwalk from Green Street to Route 120 within the next three years.
Festivals, Parks, and Peace of Mind
McHenry’s calendar tells its own story. From May through September, the city and partners such as the McHenry Area Chamber of Commerce, the McHenry Riverwalk Foundation, and Pearl Street Market coordinate a full season of events, including Fiesta Days and Light the Night, Shamrocks the Fox, Dinner Under the Stars, and Music at Miller Point. A newly completed parks master plan sets priorities for trails and connectivity, while a planned widening of Route 31 will add a bike path linking toward the Prairie Trail and Moraine Hills State Park.
The crown jewel is the McHenry Music Festival, a three-day September event drawing 11,000 people per night with headliners such as Shinedown, Hardy, and Kane Brown. It is produced by the Rise Up Foundation, founded by Mayor Jett and his wife, which has raised more than $1.6 million for the community over five years and funded projects such as the city’s first splash pad.
“The risk versus reward is not that much,” Mayor Jett reflects on the roughly $3.5 million production. “But it draws people out, it engages people. It just shows kind of who we are.”
Public safety keeps pace with the growth. The police department has earned CALEA accreditation seven times, hosts quarterly Coffee with the Chief sessions, and is developing a drone program that can reach an accident or fire scene ahead of a squad car, feeding dispatchers real-time information, including thermal imaging to detect people inside a burning building. “We are definitely stepping up to what we need to do to keep our community safe,” Mayor Jett says.
The Road to 2050
The next several years come down to finishing what has been started. With roughly two and a half years left in his term, Mayor Jett wants to see the long-held downtown properties developed, the wastewater treatment plant site cleared through FEMA approvals for redevelopment, and every available dollar still flowing into roads.
“The next mayor and the next city council members will have an easier job than what I had when I first got here,” he predicts.
Martin’s list looks further out: workforce housing, greater diversity and attainability in housing, and job creation, including preparing a site to land a major employer.
Taken together, it is the same idea that has driven McHenry for a decade. Grow on purpose, start from the heart of town, and let the river carry the story outward.