Bartlett boosters hoping U-46 OK’s stadium

It has been more than nine months since the Bartlett High School Boosters Club first revived efforts to get an athletic stadium built on the property of their 14-year-old school.

Since then, plans have been modified, the price tag has gone up and club leaders have learned from the successful construction of a new stadium at another Elgin Area School District U-46 campus, South Elgin High School.

As soon as the board gives the Bartlett High booster club its approval, club President George Kantzavelos said, fundraising will start.

“We wanted to get all of our ducks in a row so that we are ready once the board says go ahead,” Kantzavelos said.

The proposed activities complex will allow the Bartlett High School Hawks to play home football and soccer games, which the teams currently play at Streamwood High School. The school’s track team also would have a regulation-sized oval. “Bartlett High School has a field out there, but there is not enough room on the east side of the property to put visitors bleachers without extensive wetland work,” Kantzavelos said. “We need to move the varsity field about 100 feet to the west.”

Kantzavelos said the complex will not be limited to use by the football and soccer teams. He said baseball would use the field in the spring and the marching band also would have access.

In February, Bartlett High School Athletic Director Jeff Bral estimated construction would cost about $3.2 million and be done in three phases.

But Kantzavelos said shifting the turf field to the west would cost about $500,000 alone. The overall cost is now estimated at $4 million, plus unknowns that could push that figure to $7.5 million.

“We don’t have the luxury of putting up stands and calling it a stadium,” Kantzavelos said. “We’ll tear up the grass and the track that are there now. We have to start from scratch. There’s nothing there that we can salvage. We’ll be starting from scratch.”

Although the club is unable to provide renderings or plans until the school board signs off on the concept, Kantzavelos said the activities complex would include a turf field, a new electronic scoreboard, an Illinois High School Association distance running track and visitor stands for up to 1,500 people.

Previous attempts to build a stadium at Bartlett High School were curtailed because of resistance from district officials. But the current administration was fully behind South Elgin’s plan.

“There’s now a process in place that lets us do this,” Kantzavelos said. “We learned a lot from the South Elgin project and we’re really riding on their coattails with our project.”