Dist. 200 OKs funding for the next phase of facilities master plan

A firm hired earlier this year by the Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 board of education will receive an extra $123,000 to carry out phase three of creating a facilities master plan for the district.

The contract was awarded to Perkins+Will with a 5-2 vote Wednesday night. Board members Jim Gambaiani and Jim Mathieson voted no.

“I'm a little concerned about three more sessions of community engagement groups, the cost of doing that,” Mathieson said. “I'm struggling with the concept.”

Gambaiani and Mathieson also voted no when the board first agreed to hire Perkins+Will in June. At that time, the firm was awarded $73,044 to begin work. The contract also gave the board the opportunity to review the process at various milestones before voting to move forward, resulting in a vote to approve the next phase of work Wednesday.

In June, the board approved the first two phases of work, which included the development of a planning team, establishment of goals, tours of all the district's facilities, data collection and assessments.

At a committee of the whole meeting last month, representatives from Perkins+Will gave a presentation on what they found during the assessment period. They also recapped the 66 survey responses received from community members who attended the district's State of Our Schools address in September.

Phase three work includes three additional community engagement sessions intended to gather more public input about the facilities master plan.

The sessions are scheduled for 7 p.m. on Dec. 2 at Hubble Middle School and Jan. 20 and Feb. 17 at Monroe Middle School. A facilities assessment report will be presented at the next meeting and facility master plan options will be presented and revised at the two later meetings.

Board member Brad Paulsen said he believes it will be “an exciting time” over the next three to four months, as phase three is expected to be complete by spring.

“We're moving from the stage of getting input, making observations about the buildings, creating summaries of the needs, to the stage of kind of developing and defining concepts,” he said. “This is where we begin to put the guiding principals, the needs, the vision in place and figure out how to apply that in the unique constraints of each individual building.”