Voters have approved Evergreen Park Elementary School District 124’s request for a $68 million bond issue to tear down Central Middle School and build a new one next to it.
With all 12 precincts reporting Tuesday night, complete but unofficial results showed the measure easily being approved with 4,465 “yes” votes to 2,778 “no” votes.
The owner of a home with a $300,000 assessed value would pay about $604 more a year, or roughly $50 a month, according to district estimates.
The current plan is a smaller version of an earlier one. District officials wrote that they revised a larger proposal after hearing from residents and narrowed the focus to Central, which they called the district’s main priority.
District officials describe the building as nearly a century old. According to the guide, its problems include:
• Crowded classrooms and hallways, with poor circulation and accessibility concerns.
• 17 separate entry points, which the district says raises security concerns.
• Outdated HVAC and mechanical systems.
• Basement classrooms and a basement cafeteria with no natural light.
• An undersized library, science labs and common areas.
• No auditorium.
• Traffic congestion and parking problems the district says affect student and community safety.
The proposed replacement would be a three-story, 98,000-square-foot building, according to the district. It would go up beside the current school, so students would stay in the old building during construction.
Plans call for a combined gym and auditorium open for community use, a new library and science labs, updated mechanical systems, improved ADA accessibility, tighter building security, and changes to parking and traffic flow.
District officials say building new would cost less to maintain than renovating, use less energy, take less time and disrupt classes less. The guide does not include a cost estimate for renovation or figures supporting those comparisons.
The district’s timeline calls for six to eight months of design work, construction bids in June 2027 and a groundbreaking in July 2027. Construction would take about 18 months, according to the district.
The old building would be demolished in summer 2029. Staff would move into the new school in August 2029, and students would start there on the first day of the 2029 school year, according to the timeline.