IEPA approves potential school site for Dist. 200

It's clean.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency issued a clean bill of health this week for the proposed new location of Hubble Middle School, and Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 taxpayers should expect a Hubble referendum on primary ballots in February.

The agency reviewed multiple rounds of environmental tests in deciding the 19-acre site in Warrenville "does not constitute a threat to human health and the environment."

The results clear the site for construction of a new school.

"It doesn't get any better than this environmentally," said James Vroman, District 200's environmental attorney. "The property is good for any use under the spectrum."

The school board is expected to vote on putting a referendum on Feb. 5 ballots at one of two meetings in October.

The district will spend the next month determining the cost of building the new school.

The one locked-in number is the $7.6 million price of the Warrenville site on Herrick Road. The additional cost of the new building slowly has ticked upward. Most recent estimates for the project had a $54.5 million price tag.

Some of that may be offset by the sale of the existing Hubble site. But the school board has yet to take a formal vote stating its intention to sell the property at Main Street and Roosevelt Road.

If all that happens, then the referendum campaign would begin under the leadership of former Wheaton North High School Principal Ralph Heatherington.

A key selling point for the Wheaton contingency of the district would be feeling good about what developers could build on Hubble's existing location.

Members of the district's Hubble subcommittee already have five concept sketches for a redevelopment vision that should be made public in the next few weeks.