By the time students return to Oak Park and River Forest High School for the fall 2015 semester, there will have been roughly $4.5 million worth of improvements made to the school, most of them out of sight and out of mind. A short representative listing of the scope of work that’s currently underway at the roughly million-square-foot facility reads like the ‘terms and conditions’ section of an iPhone app.
The projects include renovations to technology systems levels 1, 2 and 3; installation of IDF technology room split-system cooling units; HVAC, electrical lighting and cabling revisions to various second floor classrooms; and renovations to wood shop dust collections systems; among others.
One project that doesn’t want for drama, though, is the replacement of the school’s air handling units X1, X2 and S8. It will be a big production, replete with a helicopter and security personnel standing by.
This Friday a helicopter will lift several of the HVAC units from the school’s west/Linden Avenue side onto the roof. The lift is scheduled to happen as early as 7 a.m. or as late as 9:30 a.m., depending on the weather conditions. If canceled, the alternate lift date will be June 15 at the same times, according to a statement released by the school.
Although summer school will be in session while the lift occurs, the school’s Mall and Erie Street entrances will be closed, bike racks on the Mall will be inaccessible, sidewalks between the tennis courts and softball fields will be closed off and the tennis courts will off-limits from 6 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., the statement notes.
The drama will be the culmination of a process — which includes identifying repairs, obtaining cost estimates and entertaining competing bids — that is as winding and complex as the century-old high school campus itself.
The process for approving and entertaining bids for summer projects typically starts the year before the actual work begins. Robert Zummallen, the district’s supervisor of construction, said this year’s summer construction work was approved at a board meeting in April last year.
“We go through a lengthy process of coming up with drawings,” he said. “The bid process usually opens before Thanksgiving in November.”
“By putting [projects] out to bid in November, we get good, competitive bids,” said Tod Altenberg, the district’s chief business official. “We get a number of contractors who are interested.”
Zummallen said the district’s bid process is so competitive that it isn’t unusual for summer construction projects to be completed under budget. He said one year, the district finished the summer construction season about a million dollars under budget.
Last year, according to a 2014 finance committee memo, the district’s general contractor, Henry Bros. Construction Managers, invited 440 subcontractors to bid on five separate contracts for a variety of work, such as exterior masonry restoration, plumbing, electrical and asbestos abatement. The total cost of roughly 16 capital improvement and maintenance projects underway this summer amounts to $4,552,988 — $303,512 under the budget approved by the board back in April 2014. This year’s summer work is expected to be completed by July 24.
OPRF construction supervisor gives pool update
Robert Zummallen, OPRF’s construction supervisor, laid out the next steps for dealing with the future of the high school’s two outmoded pools. In April, the D200 board voted unanimously to direct the administration to build a 50-meter swimming pool on the site of the Lake Street parking garage. The project could cost an estimated $36 million, which includes purchasing and demolishing the garage which is owned by Oak Park’s village government.
But the status of the school’s two roughly century-old pools that the new pool will replace hasn’t been exactly fleshed out. Zummallen said right now the administration is going through a program verification phase, which entails getting feedback on what to do with the pools from stakeholders in the school and community.
“We’re gathering input from teaching staff, coaches, the park district and organizations like the YMCA about what they’d want [to replace the pools],” Zummallen said, before noting that the process of constructing the new pool is in the seed stages.
“In the meantime, we’re negotiating professional service and we’re beginning to negotiate contracts with our architect of record, which could take up to six months to do and then we’ll start the design phase, getting permits, etc. That part of the phase could take up to one year before we can even start construction,” he said.
Zummallen said that completing a design for the new pool and hiring a contractor to build it is a pretty lengthy process. “It would be next summer at the very earliest, maybe July, before we did anything as far as construction. More realistically, it could run into March 2017, depending on how fast the board acts.
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com