Pardon our dust: Work being done at Island Lake village hall
Improvements are underway at Island Lake's village hall to make the building more easily accessible to people with disabilities.
A canopy and part of the sidewalk in front of the building at 3720 Greenleaf Ave. have been removed and will be replaced with more parking spots for people with disabilities. Another stretch of sidewalk has been replaced.
Additionally, a new front door that can be opened with the press of a button will be installed.
The entire parking lot will be repaved and restriped, too, although some of that work is outside the scope of the accessibility-related project.
Funding for the project is coming from a $40,000 federal grant. Village officials are responsible for matching 10% of that sum, Village Clerk Georgine Cooper said.
The one-story building was constructed as a school in the 1950s. Island Lake acquired the building in 1985 and converted it into village hall.
The Creative Playtime preschool operates in part of the building, as does the police department and a senior center. A gym is used for recreational programs, too.
The building has been repaired and renovated numerous times through the years. Most recently, the office area received new flooring.
"We do things as we have some dollars budgeted," Mayor Charles Amrich said.
Village public works crews did some preliminary work in late September to keep project costs down, Cooper said. That included removing the canopy, which had been built to keep students out of the rain while boarding school buses, officials said.
A Lake in the Hills firm called Chicago Construction Services was hired to handle much of the project. It began work last week and should wrap up its part of the job later this month. The company will be paid $34,068 for its work.
The parking lot repaving is being handled by a Lake Zurich company called Chicagoland Paving. The job is part of the village's annual road maintenance program, and a specific price estimate wasn't available.
The building's front entrance is closed because of the work. People needing to take care of village business or attend a program should park in the back and enter through a rear door.