Less than a month after rejecting a fifth swimming pool proposal for Oak Park and River Forest High School, the District 200 school board has voted to entertain a fifth proposal after all — one that calls for constructing a 27,720-square-foot underground swimming pool facility on the west side of campus.
At a May 17 special meeting, the board voted to allow Legat Architects, the district’s architect of record, to review the feasibility of the $22.7 million proposal, which was drafted pro bono by Oak Park-based architects Garret Eakin and Frank Heitzman at the request of River Forest resident Katharine Christmas and D200 board member Steven Gevinson.
“We feel like we have solved the location of the fields,” said Heitzman, noting that he’s worked on underground facilities in the past. He said his proposed underground pool would eat up less than 4,000 square feet of total green space on the landlocked campus.
“That’s because we’re using the space more efficiently,” he said.
Gevinson had presented his first “fifth pool option” last month, which called for building a facility with a roughly 37-meter-long stretch pool on the west fields, reconfiguring the baseball and softball fields, and developing new tennis courts at Keystone Park in River Forest while also keeping four new tennis courts on campus.
That plan was rejected by board members, many of whom cited its lack of financial and architectural detail, its possible inability to pass a referendum and fears that, because it required collaboration with the village of River Forest, it might not meet the Aug. 22 deadline for submitting a referendum question in time for the November election.
Also, that plan had not been included among the four pool options the district presented to the public during three community meetings held in April. Gevinson explained that he was never given the opportunity to properly present his plan to the district’s five-member internal working group and therefore was handicapped by not having access to the professional architects and the cost estimators who were utilized to refine the four other pool options.
But at the May 17 meeting, Gevinson actually presented two options, calling them plans “5A” and “5B,” which were based on his earlier proposal. Both plans would construct a pool facility on the site where a pedestrian mall with picnic tables currently exists. Plan “5A” would cost slightly more than “5B” — around $23.4 million.
Plan “5A” is almost identical to plan “5B,” except the pool would be built above ground and shift the baseball and softball fields, and tennis courts. The plan would also relocate the football stadium’s visitor bleachers to sit above the pool building.
Plan “5B” would entail overlaying a portion of the baseball team’s right field on top of the underground structure. The rest of the fields and the tennis courts would remain in place. The pool facility’s main entrance would be accessed through a roughly 5,600-square-foot upper level that would include three classrooms and restroom areas, and would allow students and staff members to enter the lower level by way of a centrally located foyer.
Although the above ground option was largely dismissed by board members, several said they were “intrigued” by the underground pool proposal’s low cost, its ability to minimize the loss of green space and its promise to keep all of the high school’s sports on campus.
Some board members also noted their relief that prior features of the Gevinson plan, which included a potentially cumbersome intergovernmental agreement with River Forest and the possibility of displacing tennis, had been resolved in the underground version.
“I see a lot of pushback [with the new fifth proposal], but I’m intrigued,” said board member Tom Cofsky, noting that the existing four proposals “have warts with them, too.” Cofsky said he’d had a recent epiphany as to the possibilities of underground construction after visiting the Chicago Cubs’ new underground clubhouse.
“Last Sunday I was privileged to go to the Cubs new clubhouse underground in a 100-year-old building and it kind of woke me up to see what you can do,” he said. “There was vision there. It kind of connected the dots for me. It’s pretty amazing to see how they took space in an area that had no space.”
Board member Fred Arkin, however, registered a note of disapproval about the process of introducing the fifth plan. Arkin said he wasn’t “sure we can entertain this,” because the Illinois School Code and federal law have requirements for how districts can switch architects. He also said hearing the proposal undercuts Legat, the district’s contracted architectural firm, which worked on the four other plans.
“I think what’s going on here is wrong,” Arkin said, before board member Sara Dixon Spivy pointed out that Heitzman and Eakin’s services were offered pro bono.
“Garret and I are not here in any way to try to curry favor to get a job or anything like that,” said Heitzman, who added that he and Eakin would work collaboratively with Legat architects during the review process. “We’re here as community volunteers. Garret and I have spent our whole career as volunteers. This is not unusual for us. We do this a lot.”
Several residents, high school coaches and staff members expressed disapproval for the new fifth pool option, with some noting that to include the proposal after the other four options had already been presented was inappropriate.
“There were four plans laid out at those meetings and now there’s a fifth plan,” said Oak Park resident Chris Donovan, who recommended the board “table or reject” the fifth plan to focus exclusively on the four plans already presented.
John Hoerster, the head football coach, said the fifth pool option would possibly drive the freshman football program off-campus and eat away at visitor seating in an already cramped football stadium.
“This would not only all but eliminate our ability to host home playoff games, but would dissuade our community from attending games,” Hoerster said, adding that football games attract upwards of 4,000 people to the stadium.
The board voted 5-1 to allow Legat to review the proposal’s financial and architectural feasibility, with Arkin voting against the motion. Board President Jeff Weissglass abstained.