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Dist. 207 administration building improvements $254,000 over budget

A plan to convert a recently purchased Park Ridge office building to Maine Township High School District 207's new administration center and alternative school is going to cost more than expected.

District officials budgeted $876,000 to remodel the Technology & Manufacturing Association building at Devon Avenue and Dee Road, but the low bid for the project was $1,014,000.

Add in costs for asbestos abatement, and the project is $254,000 over budget, officials said.

The district's architecture consultant, Arcon Associates, took the blame for not telling district officials about the added costs sooner.

Project architect Mike Maguire said district officials asked for additions to the project, such as rooftop heating and air conditioning units and computer wiring "data drops." While Maguire said he added those things to the blueprints, he didn't add them to the bottom line.

"As we've gone through this, I'm embarrassed and very sorry for this bid coming in at where it did," Maguire said Thursday during a meeting of the school board's buildings and grounds committee.

The unexpected cost drew the ire of board member Sean Sullivan, who chastised Maguire and his team for not letting officials know earlier that the costs would be higher.

"I can fully appreciate the mea culpa and how embarrassed you are, but this stinks. ... To tell us $876,000, and then come in with $1,014,000, that's deadly, especially in terms of us, because we sit here and work our budgets basically to the penny," Sullivan said.

Conversion of the existing 18,000-square-foot office building, located just south of Maine South High School, includes constructing six classrooms and expanding an existing boardroom. The district bought the building back from TMA for $2.1 million in April, after selling it in the 1980s.

Maguire said renovation costs could be reduced through value engineering, by not painting all walls, carpeting all floors or installing a $35,000 intercom clock system.

Mary Kalou, the district's assistant superintendent for business, said those reductions could lead to the project being only $144,000 over budget. She said she'll ask the school board at its next meeting Oct. 6 to approve the contract with the low bidder, Happ Builders Inc., but at the reduced scope of work.

She added there's always the chance of unforeseen costs during construction.

"I will support the additional $144,000," Sullivan said. "I would say we pray to God - except there's an official separation of church and state - so I will just say let's hope to all of everything that there is not a series of substantial change orders in this building."

Renovation of the south side of the building, which will house the district's Alternative Resource Center, begins next month, and the area should be ready for occupancy at the start of the second semester in January. Some 30 students currently attend the center, intended for those with behavioral problems, at a leased space within St. Mary's Knanaya Catholic Parish in Morton Grove.

Work on the north side of the building, which will include administrative offices and the boardroom, will begin in December. Administrators plan to relocate there from their offices at Maine South by spring.

Dist. 207 buys back building it sold in 1980s

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