A new era is coming for Riverside-Brookfield High School softball, and head varsity coach Emma Jarrell is understandably jazzed.
She’ll have a literal home field for her team, instead of boarding a school bus to play games at Ehlert Park in Brookfield. The lower levels typically bus over to Veterans Park in North Riverside.
The Bulldogs’ softball, and baseball, programs will begin play on a multipurpose synthetic turf field located immediately north of school, likely in spring 2027. The field will be used for physical education classes and other extra-curricular activities, like band and soccer, among others.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Jarrell said. “All the girls are super-excited. We don’t have to drive anywhere. It means a lot. It’s going to be really convenient and nice for the girls to have a home.”
Perhaps best of all, Jarrell is a math teacher and smiled when she noted her classroom overlooks that space. Thus, she’ll have plenty of time to watch the field unfold, with shovels likely to hit the ground after Jan. 1, according to District 208 superintendent Dr. Kevin Skinkis.
Agreement details
RB and the Brookfield Zoo announced Friday a partnership that will bring the field to life after 14 years of discussions between those two entities. The Cook County Forest Preserve technically owns that land and leases it to the zoo. Over time multiple legislators helped advance Senate Bill 637 which was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker in spring 2025. That legislation gave the zoo the flexibility to sublease the land and also the ability for it and the high school to negotiate a deal for its use.
On Sept.15, the Forest Preserve board approved a resolution supporting an agreement between the school and the zoo to sublease the land to the high school in a $3 million, 15-year agreement.
Skinkis said the $3 million was in the form of working cash bonds that were taken out by the district in 2017 in anticipation of a deal then but eventually was nixed by the Forest Preserve. The global pandemic effectively put discussions on the matter on hold until 2024.
The cost to develop the multipurpose area will not impact taxpayers, he added.
“The $4.5 million that the board approved in 2025 did not increase property taxes,” he said. “The district’s outstanding debt service was decreasing due to the expiration of the referendum bonds. The additional bonding will maintain the downward step debt structure, continuing the annual reductions in property tax debt payments for D208 residents.”
Deanna Zalas, the District 208 school board president, confirmed the board will formally approve the sublease agreement at one of its two October meetings. A Brookfield Zoo spokesperson said the zoo’s board of trustees was “involved with planning but do not need to approve anything for the relationship to advance at this time.”
Brookfield Zoo benefits
Brookfield Zoo president and CEO Dr. Michael Adkesson said the road to the agreement was a long one between the zoo and RB, but ultimately fruitful for both entities.
“This is something the zoo and the high school have been working on for many years,” he said. “It feels really good to have this wrapped up and have landed on a win-win for everyone.
“It’s just been a really great relationship between the zoo and the high school we’ve got going right now.”
The zoo owns the parking lot north of the high school’s front façade, which it rents to RB for approximately $35,000 annually. Overflow parking went into the grass field just north of what will become the multipurpose field. As part of the agreement, District 208 will add a minimum of 50 more spots to the existing lot. The rent for the parking lot will be $30,000 for the length of the 15-year agreement.
“(Zoo guests) are parking on a paved lot; that’s important to us,” Adkesson said. “We’re looking to alleviate backup traffic into the community. We want guests to enter as quick as possible and enjoy their day at the zoo.”
The new parking is “a benefit to everyone. It gives (the high school) parking in the evening for events and on those busy days for us, it gives us additional parking we can utilize.”
Long path to the field
Like Jarrell, Skinkis smiled a bit when he thinks about the long and winding road to the agreement.
He said he’s spoken with RB alumni that played many decades ago on the old softball and baseball diamonds that will become the new mutlitpurpose field. As the zoo grew, he said it utilized that space for overflow parking, mostly because it owned it. There was an understanding that it wouldn’t do that during the school year, but times change.
Fast-forward, then, to Skinkis’s first year as superintendent in spring 2012.
“Sitting in my office, it’s a beautiful spring day in March, and our girls softball team is playing and our boys baseball team had a game after,” he recalled. “Every once in awhile I’m peaking out the window, watching the game, and then all of a sudden, I get a rap on the window.
“It’s one of the zoo police officers, and he was letting me know, ‘Hey, we’re going to have to stop the game because due to the nice weather, we’ve having overflow.’ They literally gave us five minutes and they started putting cars in the outfield. We had to cancel the game mid-game.”
The agreement removes that problem and allows softball and baseball to have true home games like football and boys and girls soccer and track and field in the stadium.
Undoubtedly, it will make athletic director Fil Torres’ job easier, though the lower levels of the softball and baseball programs will still play at Veterans and Ehlert parks, respectively.
“We don’t have to worry about rides or buses when we can host on campus and it will help with practices,” he said.
Assistant Superintendent Kristin Smetana added marching band, soccer and football vie for time in the stadium, especially in the fall. Those sports could easily shift practices to the new multipurpose field.
She also said not to discount the academic benefits.
“Students get time back,” she said. “Not being on buses to go offsite, they can gain all that time. I think its’ a win-in for everybody.”