West Aurora School District 129 central administrators are hoping to move to their new district office by summer, according to Assistant Superintendent of Operations Angie Smith.
Previously an office building, renovation work on the new district office at 1877 W. Downer Place will be funded as part of $84.2 million in construction approved by voters in a referendum last year.
The building will require some cosmetic work before administrators relocate from their current, aging building in downtown Aurora. Smith estimated the renovations will not cost more than $1.5 million.
“It’s not a major redo,” she said.
Most of the work will involve replacing carpeting, painting and upgrading technology. Some work will also be done to put up or tear down walls, she said.
Preliminary site plans for the new district office, recently presented to the school board, show a two-story building that includes several conference rooms and a room for board meetings, which are currently held at West Aurora High School. The more-than 36,000 square-foot building is slightly smaller than the district’s current office, Smith said, but much of the space in the current office is not usable. The new building also leaves room for growth, she said.
The new office is part of a campus including a career and technical education center and an early childhood center. Though much of the work is not finalized, district officials expected to pay about $19.2 million to purchase the three buildings on the site and for construction, which Smith said was less than originally budgeted for the three projects.
The career and technical education center will be built to suit programming offered there, once the district determines what the curriculum should look like. Superintendent Jeff Craig has said he hoped to have the program offerings determined by the end of January.
The new early learning center is moving into an older building that must be retooled for a new use, and will require significant construction. Smith said the district expects to take over that building after Dreyer Advocate Medical Center leaves over the summer.
Aside from the campus, the district is also planning to use the voter-approved construction money to add classroom space to several buildings and build a new Hill Elementary to replace the current building, which is more than a century old. Work to install new heating and cooling systems in schools is already underway.
The district’s current, 92-year-old office at the corner of South River and West Benton streets will be taken over by the city. Officials have said they are confident they can market the building or property to a developer.
District officials hope to move into the new office building by summer, but it will depend on construction, Smith said. It will also depend on when departments can move without disrupting services.
“We can’t really shut down the district office for a week and tell people, ‘Sorry, we’re not available,'” she said.
Twitter: @srfreish
