A third potential swimming pool site has been thrown into the mix at Oak Park and River Forest High School. 

The proposed site sits right on village owned Scoville Avenue from Lake Street to the train viaduct. The east-west boundaries would be the sidewalk where Ridgeland Common begins to the east, extending onto a portion of the South Field, which the high school owns, to the west. The new site was suggested by District 200 Board of Education President John Phelan and it seems clear the suggestion has already been discussed with Village President Anan Abu-Taleb.

 The school’s construction firms, which will be overseeing the work done on a new pool facility, agreed to study the third site. Representatives from Legat Architects and Henry Bros. Construction told the D200 board at its April 24 regular meeting that they will investigate the third option and bring those results back. That should take about two weeks, the reps said. 

They presented results from their pool feasibility study of the two currently proposed sites — the parking garage on Lake Street and north of the football stadium on the athletic field. The third site suggestion was put forth during that discussion. 

The study was presented to the D200 Board Finance Committee on April 21 and to the full board Thursday. Cost estimates range from $20 to $70 million. Design concepts varied, but they all involved significant construction to varying degrees on either the baseball fields or the parking garage site. 

June 2017 is the target date to complete the facility, which would break ground next summer, followed by two years of construction. The consultants said investigating a third site would not dramatically throw off the tentative timeline, which calls for the board to finalize a site by next month. The board OKd studying the third site option.  

The school would have to buy the money losing parking garage from the Village of Oak Park if it chooses to build a pool structure on that space. Phelan said the third site at Scoville and Lake would result in the least amount of disruption to the school compared to the two proposed sites. Phelan added that the village might be open to dealing on the Scoville space if the school agrees to buy the garage, which currently has accrued about $3 million of debt. 

Abu-Taleb said Monday that he has discussed the concept with Phelan and that while the concept is in an “embryonic stage”  it is “worth having a conversation over.” Abu-Taleb said he had recently met with the village manager and fire chief to surface past concerns of the fire department on closing Scoville Avenue. He said the fire chief no longer has any objection to such a plan.

For Phelan’s part, he said, “If we owned Scoville Avenue — the street and two sidewalks — and we could build something there, then we don’t have the cost of relocating our fields; we don’t displace the tennis facility; we don’t cause baseball, softball and tennis to lose three or two seasons,” Phelan said at Thursday’s meeting, adding, “and it occurs to me that we could, if we were to purchase the garage for the cost of the debt that the village is now carrying, it might give us the ability to be gifted or, for a small amount of money, get real estate that’s not on the market and doesn’t exist and create a location.”

Abu-Taleb acknowledged that some sort of deal involving a parking garage that has sunk the village’s parking fund for a decade in exchange for closing Scoville has its appeals. 

“They (District 200) have a challenge. They have too much money,” said Abu-Taleb of the high school’s large cash reserves. He referenced the news last week that Moody’s has slightly downgraded the village government’s credit rating because the village has seriously inadequate cash on hand. He said that he and Phelan have regularly talked about the need to look at the property tax burden on Oak Parkers as a shared issue among local governments. “We need to tackle the overall tax burden. It’s on John’s mind, on the District 200 board’s mind, on the village board’s mind. So the school board is looking at every possible option, not because they don’t have the money but because they are concerned about the tax burden.”

District 200 board member Sharon Patchak-Layman, who sat on the school’s pool committee that came up with the two initial sites, said Scoville Avenue at Lake Street was considered by the committee. It was ruled out, however, due to concerns raised by the village about blocking off that street to emergency vehicles. That site would also involve extensive underground work to sewers and piping, Patchak-Layman added.   

Public, board pool preferences

The large audience at Thursday’s meeting included mostly swimming and tennis supporters, some of whom weighed in during public comments. Lasting about a half hour with more than a dozen speakers, everyone supported the school building a pool facility, many encouraging the school to “think big and bold.” Many want to see a large Olympic-sized pool built. Before a third site was mentioned by Phelan later in the meeting, some of the speakers said they didn’t care where the facility was built just as long as it was. Others, however, had specific preferences. 

If built on the baseball field, the tennis courts would be displaced as the field is shifted north. One of the site designs relocates the courts on top of the new pool structure. 

Tennis supporters rejected that option, saying playing on a roof was not feasible. Playing conditions, they added, would be affected by wind and spectators, particular elderly ones, would have a hard time getting to that space — if there’s even enough space for spectators at all. Displacing tennis players for the duration of construction, estimated at roughly two years by consultants, was also not acceptable to supporters.

A site design for the parking garage location entails an underground garage of 100 parking spaces, with the pool facility built on top of that. That design option was a non-starter for some who predicted a parking nightmare occurring around the school as a result. 

The broad range of estimated costs, however, raised hardly any concerns from the various supporters, but it did for a few board members. Some designs were also favored over others by some members. 

The underground parking garage option — estimated at nearly $53 million — was pretty much passed on by most members. And some leaned toward the softball field site while others leaned toward the garage location. 

  After nearly an hour of discussion, the board voted to accept the feasibility study, with further vetting of designs and costs in the coming weeks.