Fenwick High School is making progress on a long-term redevelopment plan rolled out in 2015 to expand the campus and reorient its main building to face Madison Street.
Nancy Bufalino, Fenwick’s chief operating officer, said in a telephone interview that in 2018, the school plans to demolish two condo buildings that run along the west side of Scoville Avenue between Madison Street and Washington Boulevard.
The demolitions will make room for the expanded campus, which includes construction of a parking garage and a new band room, choir room and cafeteria. The expanded campus also will include a small park on the southwest corner of the campus.
Fenwick also is moving forward with plans to ask Oak Park’s village government to vacate a public alley that runs through the existing campus. Fenwick representatives will present their proposal for the alley vacation at the next Oak Park Plan Commission meeting scheduled for Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. in council chambers at Village Hall, 123 Madison St.
Bufalino said the redevelopment project is “slow moving” and Fenwick staff are laying the ground work for construction, which will come at a much later date.
“There are no other plans (next year) other than taking down the condos,” she said.
She said the school wants to be “in a position to move when we’re ready to move on things.”
She noted that the redevelopment plan could change in the coming years as the school gets closer to construction, but for now, Fenwick is moving forward with the proposal presented to the Oak Park Zoning Board of Appeals in July 2014.
Fenwick officials told the ZBA at the time that the school has no plans to expand beyond the boundaries of the existing campus footprint.
Meanwhile, the school continues its fundraising efforts to pay for the expansion project.
CONTACT: tim@oakpark.com