Bids for the planned work at South Campus came in 25% higher than anticipated this spring, leading the Lyons Township High School District 204 Board of Education to cut back its expectations.
The board voted 6-1 May 20 to direct the school’s architectural firm, DLA Architects, to create bid specifications for 2025 work that is projected to cost of $10 million to $12 million. Board member Michael Thomas cast the lone dissenting vote.
The 2025 work is expected to focus on LT’s North campus after $30.5 million in upgrades are done this summer at LT’s South Campus. This summer’s South Campus includes a new cafeteria and music wing, accessibility and safety upgrades, replacing the lights in the South Campus field house and swimming pool, adding additional air conditioning, and mechanical renovations to the building’s HVAC system. Cost increases in that work forced the board to trim North Campus work.
That work, which is expected to begin in 2025, will be limited to adding additional air conditioning to the North Campus main building, renovating restrooms, and replacing an old elevator. It might also include renovating the two bathrooms at the North Campus Fieldhouse at a cost of $500,000.
Classroom modernization work at North Campus which had been projected to cost $6.6 million is being deferred. Another project that is being deferred is the installation of a turf field at the West Field which had been anticipated to cost about $3.5 million. Plans to add another elevator at North Campus have also been deferred.
Board member Michael Thomas voted against authorizing the bid specifications because he opposed delaying the work on modernizing classrooms at North Campus.
“What I’m opposed to is that the scope of this project changed from what we originally saw in Phase 1 with the modernization of classrooms being part of Phase 1,” Thomas said explaining, his no vote.
Board member Jill Beda Daniels said that expectations had to be scaled back because of the increased costs of the South Campus work.
“The costs have far exceeded what our expectations were, so our dream list had to come back down,” board member Jill Beda Daniels said. “We’re doing boring stuff.”
Daniels added that the school board must begin considering how to find the funds to fund the extensive facilities improvements that are still needed. She said that she is uncomfortable with reducing the school’s still hefty cash reserves to less than 47% of the annual operating budget, adding that the board should again talk about selling the property it owns in Willow Springs, a subject that had been temporally taken off the table after former school board president Dawn Aubert resigned from the school board on April 2. Daniels said that a bond referendum is another option to raise money for facilities improvements.
“It’s like the elephant in the room, between the land and, you know, a referendum,” Daniels said.
