River Forest narrows choices for Civic Center contract

River Forest’s governing bodies and the River Forest Community Center have narrowed the list of architectural firms that would study the best, most cost-effective way forward for the River Forest Civic Center Authority building, 8020 Madison St. 

The building is home to the River Forest Community Center and Opportunity Knocks, among other tenants. For several years, there have been ongoing discussion of the best way to improve the building’s capacity – expanding it, demolishing and replacing it with a larger building, or building something new elsewhere in River Forest. Administrators from the Village of River Forest, River Forest Park District, River Forest Township and RFCC formed an ad hoc committee to figure out the best approach to take. 

The previous discussions saw the committee leaning toward expansion of the one-time Laidlaw textbook publishing company offices, since, as a landlocked municipality, River Forest has little land to work with, and demolishing and replacing the building at the current site would disrupt programming. But after a meeting in January, the committee agreed to have architects study all possibilities.

During the April 8 River Forest Park District board meeting, Mike Sletten, park district executive director, said the village sent out a “request for qualifications” – that is, an invitation for firms to show the best way to handle a certain task. According to the documents included in the village board packet for its own April 8 meeting, they were looking for firms that would study the programming needs of RFCC and other tenants and the specifics of each of the three building options. While estimating how much each option will cost is a major priority, the winning bidder would also look at just how big the addition/new building would need to be, what kind of parking would be necessary. For the relocation options, the firm would look at possible alternative locations. Finally, the firm would put together “preliminary architectural renderings of options deemed most feasible.”

 Sletten said that in March the committee interviewed five firms and narrowed it down to two firms that were best qualified. The commission has asked those two firms to submit their proposals for the study. Since the village government is the “lead agency” on the project, Sletten said, it will be up to the village board to make the final decision – which, he said, will happen during its May meeting.  The village will also be covering the cost of the contract for whoever gets the winning bid. 

Sletten told the board that the study would take 3 to 6 months. What happens next, he told Wednesday Journal, will depend on the results. 

“We’re taking it one step at a time,” he said.