The District 205 Board of Education approved the new floor plans for Lombard Middle School and Steele Elementary at their April meeting on Monday night.
Lombard will see the new addition built on the school southeastern side. New additions include a new commons, media center, band room, and teacher’s lounge. Some renovations will be made to several core classrooms, speech, specials, and the kitchen.
Steele will have a new addition built on the building’s south-southwestern side. New rooms include several kindergarten and second-grade classrooms, as well as life skills rooms and offices. There will be renovations made to the media center, cross-categorical, and stem classrooms as well as commons, conference room, and office.
A question was raised asking if the designs were in the budget. Representatives from Legat Architects and Russell Engineering stated that they were looking over the designs and deciding if the work was doable with the budget. They stated a round of updates would be done before everything is bidded out.
Discussion also took place regarding the parking lot at Lombard. Due to the new addition taking up the southern parking lot, work will be done to the east lot to accommodate the additional parking. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund told board members the goal was to separate the bus and car traffic so that parents dropping off their kids wouldn’t have to worry about buses.
Board members also approved the bid specifications for the demolition of the Zephyr Dome, the old Lombard gym.
Dr. Asplund went over some of the specifics bid documents, notably the rules that demolition companies have to follow during the demolition process.
“Rules that people have to follow that you wouldn’t have to follow if you were knocking down your own property,” Asplund said to board members. “It’s a public building. If they get into things that they don’t have any knowledge that they are there, there are very specific rules for you have to remove underground storage tanks, powerlines, lead, asbestos, you name it.”
Asplund added that no one really knows what the demolition crews will hit when they start tearing into the building, as those records were not required that far back.
Bid requests will go out, with the deadline being April 25th. The winning bidder will be responsible for taking down the gym and filling it. Maintenance staff for the district will be responsible for seeding the ground.
