Oak Park and River Forest High School will benefit from millions in state money to support the construction of its new physical education facilities.
The Oak Park and River Forest High School Imagine Foundation, a non-profit organization running a fundraising campaign to support the school district’s ambitious facility improvement plan, secured a $3.5 million grant from the state of Illinois to cover costs related to the geothermal heating and cooling system being installed underneath OPRF’s football field.
The new system is one part of Project 2 of the high school’s “Imagine Plan,” the second of five phases of facility upgrades on the school’s Scoville Avenue campus. The system will service the new five level physical education center being constructed in the southeastern corner of OPRF’s campus.
The new system is expected to help save District 200 more than $300,000 a year in utility costs while also driving the district towards its ambitious sustainability goals.
The state money, which comes from Illinois’ Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, will cover a chunk of the $12.5 million cost of the system.
“We are grateful to the OPRFHS Imagine Foundation and our local elected representatives for their assistance in securing state funding to help D200 build better educational facilities for our students,” said Greg Johnson, D200 superintendent. “By supporting our investment in geothermal for Project 2, this grant helps us take a big step toward meeting our district’s very ambitious sustainability goals, which include reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 100% of 2012 levels by 2050.”
District 200’s sustainability policy tasks it with reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 45% of its 2012 levels by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Geothermal systems are more efficient than gas or electric heat and emit no greenhouse gas. The D200 board unanimously approved the system in January 2024 with the expectation it would create 442,500 fewer pounds of carbon each year compared to a natural gas system.
The work on the geothermal system is expected to be completed by July, before the OPRF football team begins summer practice, OPRF’s director of construction Jeff Bergmann told Wednesday Journal in April.
“The status of the project is actually going very well considering the cold winter that we had,” said Bergmann. “Hopefully we’ll be able to do another project like this in the future for a different part of the building.”
The new physical education building is expected to be completed by the summer of 2026, according to the district.
The OPRFHS Imagine Foundation helped secure the state grant as part of its commitment to raise at least $12.5 million in funding for Imagine Plan Project 2 through charitable gifts, grants, and other funding sources. In addition to the State of Illinois grant, the Imagine Foundation has used charitable gift funds to grant $3M directly to District 200 via two grants in 2024 and a third grant to be presented to the D200 Board of Education at its meeting on June 12, 2025, according to the district.
“The OPRFHS Imagine Foundation is thrilled to work with donors and other stakeholders to fulfill our commitment to OPRFHS students. We are immensely grateful to the State of Illinois for its commitment to provide all OPRF students an excellent educational experience in sustainable facilities,” said Heidi Ruehle, executive director of the foundation. “This investment in green energy is a win-win for our students, communities, state, and planet.”