Geneva schools closer to building new garage

Plans to build a new maintenance garage and additional bus storage for Geneva schools have progressed, as the school board has accepted a traffic study for the site.

The district intends to build it on a 27-acre site on the northwest corner of Brundige and Keslinger roads, across from Mill Creek Elementary School. It bought the land in December 2006.

The district expects to spend up to $5 million to build the garage, which would hold grounds and building maintenance trucks and equipment. Presently, those vehicles are scattered at the bus garage, a garage off McKinley Avenue near the high school, and at the district's office on Fourth Street. It will lose the room at the high school when the district enlarges the high school.

If it can afford to, the district would design the facility to have room to park about 40 buses inside and 20 outside, said Rebecca Allard, assistant superintendent for business.

"Cost will drive my decision," she said.

And there would be three soccer fields, to replace the three that were displaced by the construction of Williamsburg Elementary School.

The district presently owns 61 buses, and will have 66 next school year. It parks 43 inside the bus barn on Keslinger, seven outside, and the rest at the middle schools' campus.

"I needed the parking a year ago," Allard said.

The district still must get permission from Kane County to build the facility. The Union Pacific railroad tracks are just to the north of the site, and there are some industrial buildings to the west.

"This (accepting the traffic report) is just the beginning of the process," Allard said.

The district expects to start construction in 2009.