Why Elk Grove Township might buy Dist. 59 administration building
Elk Grove Township officials confirmed this week their interest in buying Elk Grove Township Elementary District 59's administration building, located a few blocks from township headquarters.
"It would be a sizable upgrade," Township Supervisor Michael Sweeney said of the school district's 35,000-square-foot building at 2123 S. Arlington Heights Road in Arlington Heights. "It would give us more space to do things we'd want to do."
That could include room for a new job training program and expansion of the township food pantry, Sweeney said. The existing 56-year-old township building is about half the size at 19,000 square feet.
School district officials revealed Monday night that they recently gave a tour of the district's headquarters to officials from an unnamed township. They didn't immediately reveal which township since the issue hadn't yet been brought to the township's board of trustees.
Sweeney said he plans to do that at the next Elk Grove Township board meeting Feb. 22.
That's the same night District 59's board will be meeting less than a half-mile away, where board members are expected to vote on what to do with three properties the district owns.
The board is weighing three options: Renovate the existing administration building and build a connected one-story professional development center on the site of the former Wellington restaurant; build a new administration center on the Wellington site and sell the current administration building; or sell both properties and build a new administration center at the old Lively school site on Leicester Road in Elk Grove Village.
If the board selects the second option, District 59 could sell to the township or someone else. The board could even set a price in closed session as early as Feb. 22.
"If the school district would like to move forward in conversations and potentially a sale, I'm looking forward to having that conversation," Sweeney said.
The township board has been talking since December about a possible expansion of the current township building, at 2400 S. Arlington Heights Road in Arlington Heights, to accommodate additional programming, he added.
If the township is able to relocate its administrative offices elsewhere, Sweeney said he'd hope to get the current headquarters "back on the tax rolls."