Exurbia Expands

School Construction in Session Even in Truant Economy

by Pamela Dittmer McKuen

Out in Chicago’s collar counties, where populations soared for a decade, the residential building boom is a bust, but school construction is moving ahead, for the time being at least.

These multiyear, megamilliondollar projects were funded largely through voter referenda to increase taxes and approve bond sales.

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Money doesn’t make everything easy, however. Building in exurbia presents both challenges and opportunities not usually seen in tightly developed areas. The nearest utility connection could be acres away, and roadways often are inadequate. Land is plentiful but might need improving.

“If water is not available during construction, it may be trucked in for use in mixing masonry mortar,” says Gary Hill, director of the K-12 education group for Turner Construction Co. in Chicago. “Sometimes temporary wells are drilled onsite for water.”

There’s more room for staging equipment and materials, but “every bit you disturb, you have to put back,” he adds.

Here’s a look at a few recent projects, and a glimpse of what may lie ahead.

Alleviating Overcrowding

Will County voters in March 2006 passed a $225-million referendum mostly to build two high schools to alleviate overcrowding at two existing ones. Lincoln-Way North in Frankfort opened this year and Lincoln-Way West in New Lenox will open in next fall. Hickory Hills-based Henry Bros. Construction Co. serves as construction manager.

The two schools are nearly identical. Both measure 414,000 sq ft and have capacity for 2,500 students. Their footprints vary slightly because West sits on a corner and North does not.

The West site is bordered by county, village and township roads. All governing bodies had to agree on a plan to widen them, add turn lanes and install a traffic light, a feat in cooperation, says Larry Wyllie, district superintendent.

The North campus was split in two by a jet fuel pipeline. The whole project was designed around it, says Bill Callaghan, Henry Bros. executive vice president.

“We had all of our materials and much of our earth-balancing equipment passing back and forth across that pipe,” he says. “We built temporary roadways and supports over it, then monitored carefully to make sure there were no vibrations that could cause damage.”

The cost of two schools was about $200 million; the remaining money went for life-safety work and air conditioning at the older schools, such as Lincoln-Way East and Lincoln-Way Central.

“If we were building two new schools with air conditioning, we knew that would be an issue at the existing schools,” Wyllie says.

Building New, Renewing Old

In Carpentersville in Kane County, Community Unit School District 300 is in the midst of a five-year, $226-million project that includes building new schools and expanding and renovating a couple dozen existing ones.

Chicago-based Bovis Lend-Lease heads up the new construction. The capstone is Hampshire High School, a 392,000-sq-ft facility for 2,500 students, which opened this fall.

The high school is on 100 acres, which are shared by a middle school and elementary school. The site has its own water tower, and tests are under way in hopes of building a wind turbine to generate electricity for the campus.

Bovis also delivered two elementary schools, Gilberts Elementary School in Gilberts, and Gary D. Wright Elementary School in Hampshire, both of which opened in fall 2007. A third elementary school is possible.

The project is funded mostly by a $185 million referendum, passed in 2007. Additional money is coming from impact fees, an Illinois Capital Development Board grant and interest income on investments and money not yet spent. The land was donated.

“For the past three or four years, we’ve been seeing 400 to 500 more kids each year,” says Mike Prombo, CUSD’s director of operations. “Some of that is due to new (home) construction. The other piece is because the price of gasoline is so high parents are not driving their kids to private schools outside the district. They are sending them to public schools.”

Minooka Getting Immense

Rapid growth and limited means prompted Minooka Community High School District 111 in Grundy County to seek voter support in two phases.

The first was a 2006 referendum for $52.4 million to build a second high school, the Minooka Community High School South campus in Channahon, which opened to freshmen and sophomores this fall. Juniors and seniors remain at the Central campus in Minooka. The second phase, to expand South and improve Central, goes out in 2014. Ultimately, both will be four-year schools for 2,000 students.

Turner built the 283,000-sq-ft South school on 67 acres of low-lying farmland. The sitework was extensive, requiring about 12 ft of engineered fill to strengthen the building pad and several detention ponds to manage stormwater.

“Farmland often has a lot of topsoil—it’s good for plants but doesn’t support a structure very well,” Hill says.

A Look Ahead

The future is uncertain, especially after current projects wrap up late next year. School districts have not started issuing mass cancellations, but some are re-evaluating their needs.

Oswego Community Unit School District 308 in Kendall County in 2006 passed a $450 million referendum to build more than a dozen new schools and renovate several existing ones. Now the district doesn’t need that many, not right away, because of slowed growth from the residential slowdown, says district superintendent David Behlow.

The district has backup: one junior high is in mothballs and an elementary school has yet to open.

“Even if we have zero growth in the next few years, we will still need some additional facilities,” Behlow adds.

Referendums, too, have slowed. In the Chicago metropolitan area, the number declined from 56 in 2006 to 20 in 2008.

“Historically, data show that referenda for building bonds don’t do that well during general election years,” says John Doherty, Bovis’ project executive and director of the educational business. “It will be interesting to see what happens in April in terms of the number of schools that go out and the pass-fail rate as well.” April is the next opportunity school districts to go to referendum.

On a positive note, schools have an ongoing need to maintain, repair and improve their aging buildings.

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