Boxes are already stacking up at 336 S. Route 59, the Westridge Court address where L.L.Bean opens its doors on September 25. It will be the retailer's fourth Illinois location, joining stores in Oak Brook, South Barrington, and Skokie, and the first to sit this deep into the western suburbs. When L.L.Bean District Manager Barbara Noe talked to NCTV17 about why the company chose this stretch of Route 59, she didn't mention foot traffic counts or demographic models. She pointed to the Riverwalk, the parks, and the forest preserves, calling out how many ways there are to enjoy the outdoors close to home.
That is a reasonable pitch. It is also, for anyone who actually rides a bike through this town, slightly misleading about how the network fits together. Naperville's outdoor system is real and it is extensive, but it is not one continuous ribbon you pedal from the new store's parking lot into the woods. It has a seam in it, and the seam runs directly through the trail's most famous, most photographed section.
What actually connects
Start with the honest scale of it. The DuPage River Trail, taken as a whole, runs roughly 49 miles across DuPage and Will counties, threading south from Bartlett through Naperville, Bolingbrook, Plainfield, and Shorewood. Locally, the most-used stretch runs along Whalon Lake, which has its own fishing boardwalk and a loop popular enough that regulars mention it by name rather than by mile marker. From there the trail passes Knoch Knolls Park and Nature Center, cuts through prairie and riparian woods, and continues toward Hidden Lakes and the old Trout Farm, where a bait shop still operates near the water.
This is paved, mostly flat, and genuinely suited to the kind of gear L.L.Bean sells: broken-in boots for the unpaved connector paths, layered outerwear for a system that riders describe as usable in every season, daypacks for the stretches that run for an hour or more without a road crossing. If you're picturing a straight shot from a bike rack at Westridge Court to the quiet parts of the trail near Whalon Lake, the infrastructure mostly backs you up.
Mostly.
The detour hidden inside the crown jewel
Here is the part that surprises people who assume the whole system links up: when the West Branch DuPage River Trail reaches downtown Naperville, it runs straight into the Riverwalk, and the Riverwalk does not allow bikes.
This is not a minor technicality. The Riverwalk is the piece of Naperville that shows up on postcards, in wedding photos, and on every visitor's must-see list. It spans 1.75 miles along the DuPage River and covers close to 100 acres of riverfront parkland. It was built by volunteer labor in 1981 to mark the city's sesquicentennial, which is part of why residents still refer to it as the town's crown jewel rather than just another park amenity. It is brick-paved, foot-traffic only, with allowances for strollers and mobility devices, and it is genuinely one of the more pleasant walks in the Chicago suburbs.
It is also, for a cyclist trying to ride the trail system end to end, a wall. Riders who reach the Riverwalk from the north have to dismount, leave the paved trail, and navigate city streets through downtown before they can pick the trail back up on the south side. Anyone who has done this a few times learns to route around it. Anyone doing it for the first time, especially someone who just bought a bike from a store that opened three weeks ago, is going to be surprised.
The gap does not reflect poor planning so much as competing purposes. A downtown-facing walking path built by volunteers in 1981 to celebrate a milestone anniversary was never meant to double as a regional bike corridor, and the fact that a 49-mile trail system grew up around it decades later does not obligate anyone to retrofit that intention. But it does mean the map most residents carry in their head, one continuous trail from the store to the state, is not the map on the ground.
Different segments, different gear
Once you separate the system into its actual pieces, the L.L.Bean product mix starts to make more sense than a single "outdoor lifestyle" tagline suggests.
The Whalon Lake and Knoch Knolls stretch rewards trail runners and cyclists: paved surface, real distance, wildlife along the way, and enough exposure that layered gear matters across a Chicago fall and winter. The Riverwalk rewards a completely different kit: comfortable walking shoes, a jacket for an evening stroll, maybe a rod if you're headed toward the stocked fishing spots, since paddle boat rentals and river access make it as much a place to be on the water as beside it. Hidden Lakes and the old Trout Farm area lean further into that fishing identity, with a bait shop still doing business near the water for anyone who wants to cast a line rather than log miles.
A store that stocks boots, packs, outerwear, and paddling gear under one roof is betting that residents move between all three of these modes across a single season, not that they do one activity exclusively. Given how the trail system actually splits by segment, that bet looks accurate.
Why the timing lines up
The September 25 opening lands in the middle of Naperville's busiest stretch of outdoor calendar. Naperville Irish Fest returns to Central Park for its sixth year on September 18 and 19, just a week before the store opens. The River Sounds concert series, a free outdoor music run along the Riverwalk at Jaycees WiFi Park, has been drawing evening crowds to that same brick path all summer. AllTrails lists April through October as the strongest window for the DuPage River Trail, which means the store is opening squarely inside the season when residents are already out there, not ahead of it or behind it.
L.L.Bean is also bringing real local employment with the opening: the company has said it's hiring 40 new full and part time staff to run the Westridge Court location, a detail Noe confirmed alongside the September date. That is a meaningful number for a single retail storefront, and it suggests the company expects steady, not seasonal, demand from a customer base that treats trail access as a year-round habit rather than a summer activity.
What this means if you're already out there
If you live near enough to make Westridge Court part of your routine, the practical takeaway is simple. Don't plan a continuous ride from the new store into downtown and back out the other side. Start your ride at Whalon Lake or Knoch Knolls if you want uninterrupted mileage, and treat the Riverwalk as its own separate outing, on foot, ideally in the evening when River Sounds or one of the fall festivals gives you a reason to linger downtown afterward. The system rewards people who understand it has parts, not people who expect it to behave like a single trail.
That is the kind of detail that only shows up if you actually use the network rather than describe it from a press release, and it's the reason a new outdoor retailer's arrival is worth more than a passing mention in a business roundup. It tells you something true about how this town actually moves.
If you're the kind of person who already knows exactly where the pavement changes to brick on the Riverwalk, you probably already know a lot about what makes a Naperville property worth its price, too. When that knowledge turns into a real conversation about buying or selling here, Jill Clark is worth a call. Request a private consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
