Schools
Maine D207 To Vote on $5M of Building Upkeep
The district unveiled a 10-year plan with a $62 million price tag; most of it is roof work, new lighting, tuckpointing, mechanical work to keep the Maine East, South and West buildings going. Some are 80 years old.
The Maine Township High School District 207 school board will get its first look at the district’s new 10-year facilities plan at their meeting Nov. 5.
At the same meeting, they will be asked to approve a slate of projects to be completed this school year or next summer, said Mary Kalou, the assistant superintendent for business.
Find out what's happening in Niles-Morton Grovewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The 10-year plan, which comes with an estimated price tag of about $62 million, doesn’t include any major building projects, Kalou said. Rather, there are a lot of smaller projects intended to keep the district’s three high school buildings functioning into the future.
Earlier: District 207 sees demographic changes
Find out what's happening in Niles-Morton Grovewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“We have three very large comprehensive high schools,” Kalou said. “The newest is 50 years old and the oldest has parts that were built during the Great Depression. … There’s a lot of mechanical updates, asphalt, tuckpointing, roof work,” said Kalou, adding that such routine maintenance makes up 80 to 90 percent of planned expenditures. “There’s really not a lot of anything new.”
The 10-year plan, which was reviewed by the school board’s building and grounds committee Oct. 11, will be presented to the board as an informational item and the board will not vote on it because it is a fluid document that is intended to be updated. Instead, administrators will continue to ask the board to vote on an annual slate of projects each fall.
This year’s plan, which will come up for a vote Nov. 5, includes between $4 million and $5 million worth of work, including repairing or replacing asphalt in the parking lots at all three schools, tuckpointing at Maine South High School in Park Ridge, replacement of the pool lighting at Maine East High School in Park Ridge, and refurbishment and replacement of auditorium seating at Maine East and Maine West High School in Des Plaines.
The 10-year facilities plan was developed by Arcon Architects Inc. and Amsco Engineering over the past 10 months at a cost of about $100,000, Kalou said. However, the companies also did the district’s required health and life-safety survey as part of the same project. The life-safety survey of the district’s facilities usually costs about $80,000.
“Part of the reason we did this plan is because you know what needs to be replaced when you can see it,” Kalou said. “But a lot of the things that need to be replaced, like the rooftop mechanical units, the average person doesn’t see.”
