The Polk Bros. Foundation in Chicago has announced a $20 million legacy gift toward the redevelopment of Navy Pier, which stretches along six acres of the city's waterfront and has become one of its top tourist attractions.

The gift will fund the redevelopment of the pier's thirteen-acre Gateway Park — to be renamed Polk Bros Park — including new multi-stage performance lawns, a public fountain, promenade, and two new performance spaces. The gift from the foundation, which supports nonprofits working to reduce poverty and improve education and health care, is the first to be made in support of the $115 million project and the largest received by Navy Pier in its nearly one-hundred-year history. Phase I of the project began last fall and is projected to be completed by the pier's centennial in 2016.

Navy Pier also will use the funds to develop a plan for engaging Chicago-based arts organizations in creating programming designed to appeal to the city's diverse residents, including Chicago Public Schools students and their families.

"We are delighted to see the Polk Bros legacy...of hard work and commitment to the neighborhoods and families of Chicago [continue]," said Howard J. Polk, the son of one of the brothers who established the electronics/appliance business in the 1930s. "Today in honor of the family and Polk Bros., we make a legacy gift to the city and to the communities throughout Chicago who helped make the Polk Bros. retail stores so successful. We truly believe that Navy Pier, the 'people's pier' — a welcoming landmark that is iconically Chicago and accessible to all — has provided us with the perfect venue for the Polk Bros name to live on for future generations."