By early October, Oak Park and River Forest High School will finally decide what to do about its current pools.
The high school can either spend upwards of $30-40 million — or more — on a brand new aquatics facility or consider fixing up the current aged and outdated pools for considerably less. The board landed on those options following a roughly three-hour discussion about the pools during its Aug. 28, regular meeting.
The original plan that evening was to decide on a site to build the facility. But that all fell apart early last week after the high school pulled a recommendation to build on a portion of the baseball field after realizing that the two baseball diamonds would not fit on that site along with the new pool structure as originally thought.
The late September/early October deadline is needed to meet a June 2015 groundbreaking date if a new facility is approved. If the board doesn’t approve it at that time, meeting the June 2015 date would be highly unlikely, according to the board and consultants, Legat Architects and Henry Bros. Construction. A final decision would then likely have to be put off for another year as the school weighed its alternatives, the board and firms agreed.
New vs. fixing
Fixing the current pools has now been added as an option. It would cost about $20 million to overhaul the east and west pools, bringing them within state and federal safety codes, according to preliminary estimates by Legat. That option has been supported by some in the community. But along with many other site locations, it was considered but ruled out by the OPRF Pool Feasibility Committee, said board member Sharon Patchak-Layman, who sat on the committee.
The fix-up would actually leave the high school with smaller space in the two pool areas, which is already a problem with those spaces, Patchak-Layman said.
“If we just fixed the pools — put new pools in its place because of the state requirements — they would be smaller than what we currently have, and students would not have use of one of those pools at the time that one was being constructed, and vice-versa when the other is being constructed,” she explained.
Enlarging the current pools would impact and disrupt other parts of the campus, Patchak-Layman said.
“In looking at where could the pools move — could they bump out here or front-ways, sideways or up and down — there was always some part of our program that was affected by that. The Field House would be affected if the pools moved east and west. If we tried to move up, the classrooms and facilities above the pools would be affected. And when we looked at the cost, it would be a lot of money that would give us less than we currently had. And that was the turning point for the committee in looking at the pools and saying it needed to be outside of redoing the pools where they were.”
Board members Thursday stated their own preferences. All agreed that new pools are needed, but Jeff Weissglass said he wanted more details concerning renovating the current pools before making his final decision. Patchak-Layman said she prefers building on the parking garage site.
The garage, she said, has been underused by students as the number of student parking permits has steadily declined since its construction. Some residents speaking during public comments also favored that location, citing its underuse.
But board member Steven Gevinson disputed that claim, saying the garage is heavily used by the school’s faculty and visitors to the building during campus events.
“It is not underutilized, in my opinion,” he said. “I don’t know who came up with that characterization. I don’t know how you would measure underutilization or overutilization. But I can tell you it is utilized during the daytime and school hours every day of the week. It’s utilized many evenings. It’s utilized by River Forest residents who come here for events.
“I cannot think of another high school where the faculty and staff do not have a place to park, and where they’re walking many blocks to school every single day,” Gevinson said.
The parking garage is owned by the village of Oak Park but sits on land owned by the high school. Any plan for the garage site would have to be negotiated with the village, which has long seen that garage as a financial albatrose.
Gevinson prefers the Scoville Avenue site south of Lake Street but also suggested his own site options, including building the facility on the tennis courts site and relocating the courts to the proposed Scoville Avenue site. He noted that the tennis courts might be too wide for that space, resulting in having to build onto part of the South Field.
Board member Ralph Lee said he also had his own site possibilities but needed time to study them before making them public. He added that the board has not yet considered all of the possible sites that are practical to build.
Board member Jackie Moore, who supports building on the parking garage site, said all of the practical sites have been considered by the various committees that have studied the pools for two-plus years.
“I think that we’re ignoring all of the history of this process that Sharon just gave us. If there’s a site that wasn’t already considered, I can’t imagine,” Moore said, adding that much of that information should be available to the board before making their final decision.
“Is it as simple as having those items listed from the previous committees or previous boards’ work to be able to acknowledge that, pretty much, every spot has been considered and exempted for one reason or another, except for the ones we have now?” Moore asked.
The options currently under consideration — except for the Scoville site, which was suggested by board President John Phelan in April — were put forward by the Pool Feasibility Committee in September of 2013. Scoville Avenue was among the sites considered but ruled out due to concerns over closing the street to traffic and emergency vehicles.
The final proposed sites — the garage, tennis courts and baseball field — had several design options with preliminary costs attached. The tennis courts were then taken off the table as an option earlier this year.
An informal ad hoc committee was set up over the summer to review the remaining options. That group — which included school administrators, Legat and Henry Bros. representatives and board members Phelan and Tom Cofsky — recommended building on the baseball field site.
In an interview prior to Thursday’s board meeting, Phelan said the site was chosen because it resulted in the least disruption to students and the main campus building. But that site was withdrawn due to the measurement snafu.