It’s possible to build an addition to the existing Woodstock High School, but the result might be something less than what is really needed.
That’s the advice that architect Raymond Green gave to the District 200 Referendum Advisory Committee. He also warned that cost projections for constructing the high school addition may have been understimated by 20 percent.
That’s discouraging news for committee members, who are running out of time to come up with a winnable referendum proposal for November after April’s unsuccessful attempt-the fourth failure in five years-to get voters to approve $52 million in spending to deal with crowding.
District 200 officials say that their schools are already 10 percent overcrowded, at 4,851 students-and that if no new classrooms are built, the unit district will be 38 percent over capacity, with 5,700 students, by the turn of the 21st Century.
Green, president of Green Associates Architects, Evanston, spoke Wednesday night to the advisory committee’s subcommittee that is studying the high school addition proposal.
Gordie Tebo, a member of the advisory committee and a teacher at the high school, has come up with a rough plan for a 70,000-square-foot addition at an estimated cost of $7 million. Birchfield last week brought out a plan of his own, for a slightly smaller addition.
Committee members say the project could cost $100 per square foot, but Green took exception to that estimate.
“You’re taking a gamble at $100 per square foot,” the architect said. “You’re better off looking at $125 (per square foot).”
As for the feasibility of squeezing an addition onto the existing high school campus, at 501 W. South St., Green said, “To say arbitrarily that you can’t make it work, that would be wrong. We can make it work.”
But he conceded that the 20-acre school grounds leave little room for expansion.
“You have a tight site,” Green said. “I can do this architecturally, (but) is it feasible educationally?”
Green said it’s a tradeoff between a new building and an addition.
“It will be less expensive to work within this building than to build a new building,” Green said. But, he added, “an existing building is going to be less efficient. A new building . . . can react exactly to your program.”
The subcommittee is expected to decide soon whether to recommend that District 200 spend $10,000 to retain an architect to do a feasibility study for the high school addition. That architect could be Green Associates or the district’s own architect, Healy Snyder Bender & Associates, Naperville.
Another subcommittee is meeting to consider building a new elementary school. District Supt. Joseph Hentges has estimated that a new elementary building capable of handling 500 pupils could cost up to $6 million, not including the cost of the land.
Both subcommittees are next scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the learning center of Woodstock High School.
Having failed to reach consensus on all issues, the referendum advisory committee at last week’s school board meeting was given a one-month extension to come up with its recommendations for a November school-tax referendum.
But with the talk of hiring a consulting architect, the odds are getting long against the committee meeting the July 26 deadline.
Among other undecided issues are whether a referendum plan concerned with the needs of children in kindergarten through 8th grade should be tied to a referendum for the high school.
Some panel members have suggested that the district go for two referendums-one, in November, to deal with overcrowding in the elementary grades, and another in March 1996, to deal with problems at the high school.
One thing that the advisory committee has reached agreement on is its opposition to any attempt to revive a controversial plan to build a new high school on a 120-acre site on Raffel Road.
Even advisory panel members who supported April’s unsuccessful, $52 million referendum proposal, which called for building the new school, now say voters are unlikely to approve anything District 200 wants if the Raffel Road site has anything to do with it.
