New administration building approved for Sycamore School District

SYCAMORE – In a 4-3 vote, the Sycamore School District 427 board recently approved a $2.3 million purchase of a former Nicor Call Center, where officials plan to install the district’s administration offices.

Board members Beth Marie Evans, Eric Jones, and James Chyllo voted in favor of the resolution to purchase the building while Michael DeVito, Alex Grados, and Christian Copple voted against. Board President Jim Dombek, who votes last, broke the tie and vote in favor of the property acquisition.

Grados, a 2022 Sycamore High School graduate who successfully ran for the public office less than a year after his commencement, said he wanted allow the public to have time to grapple with the the proposal.

“I support the purchase, however I think we should wait and get some more public input instead of adopting this on first reading. I think that would be a wise thing to do to show that we value what people think, and we’d like to give them an opportunity to share anything they’d like to share about this, and also show them what this will get us.” Grados said.

The consideration of buying a building at 1947 Bethany Road had not been publicly discussed by district officials until the board’s May 28 meeting. Board members revealed they had previously discussed the matter during executive sessions – portions of government meetings that are closed to the public – however.

Sycamore Superintendent Steve Wilder said since he arrived to the district four years ago, he and other officials have known finding a new space for administration offices was something the district would need to do sooner rather than later. At the May school board meeting, Wilder said FGM Architects – the same firm contracted by the city of Sycamore to design a new fire station – had found that the current administration building would need $6.67 million worth of work to make the space safe for workers, and to meet modern building standards.

FGM Architects estimated health and life safety updates to the building would cost $3.37 million, and an additional $3.3 million would be needed to meet current building codes and Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, according to district documents.

The current Sycamore schools administration building, 245 W Exchange St., is 98 years old. It was built in 1926 and was the home of Central School until the mid 1970s, according to district documents. The district’s administration offices moved into the building in the early 1980s and have stayed there for the past 40 years, Wilder said.

The superintendent’s office isn’t the only group of Sycamore school administrators that use the space either. Wilder, while pitching the proposed purchase to the school board, said human resources, business services, student services, the district’s data center and technology office, as well as the communications and building and grounds departments – and more – are all currently operating in the nearly century-old building.

The building the board approved for a $2.3 purchase comes with seven and a half acres of land and would require only minor repairs before those various administrative departments are able to move in, according to district documents.

Wilder said the building, a former Nicor call center, will only need $250,00 worth of work for the space to jive with the district’s office space needs. He said that figure includes moving costs, and estimates the district saved $4.12 million – understanding more than $6 million worth of renovations are needed at the current administration building.

Wilder said taxpayers won’t be affected by the real estate purchase.

“We have some Health and Life Safety funds in balance that would pay for that [building]. We would not have to sell any bonds to purchase the building, we wouldn’t have to impact property taxes to purchase the building at all at this time,” Wilder said.

The newly acquired building was identified 18 months ago, but officials were first able to conduct an initial inspection and walk through on March 1. Since then, multiple detailed inspections have been conducted with district officials and FGM Architects, according to district documents.

“This fits in with the long term facility planning that we’ve talked about. We’ve really focused on the school buildings where instruction happens, we’ve done a lot of work to the elementary schools, the middle school and the high school over the last several years. The high school has got a lot more of our discussion over the last couple of months, and over time this needs to continue to be a focus but this [administration building purchase] was an opportunity that popped up that we feel like is also an investment in the future of the school district,” Wilder said.

The school district’s warehouse will also move into the new building, and officials have mused a variety of other functions the new property could be used for.

The board members who voted against the real estate purchase said they wanted to give the public opportunity to submit feedback, considering the details of the proposed purchase were only made public when the meeting’s agenda was released the Friday before.

DeVito said the purchase is a sensible choice, but took issue with approving the purchase the same night the board first publicly discussed the concept.

“It does seem like a really good decision, I just don’t like the way we’re making it,” DeVito said.

District officials said even though the property has been on the market for the better part of a decade, they struggled to get ahold of Nicor to discuss purchasing the real estate.

Assistant Superintendent for Business Services, Nicole Stuckert, said there was no guarantee the property would still be for sale if the board waited until June to make a decision.

“They could demolish the building tomorrow if we don’t move forward with this, it was already on the docket to get rid of, so,” Stuckert said.

Board member Jones, who was the first to declare he’d vote to approve the purchase, said he doesn’t expect the majority of their constituents would be opposed to the decision.

“I don’t mean to sound rash about my decision or my impatience to not thoroughly vet this with the community, so to speak. I just think they’ve ... picked us to be their representatives in this situation. I don’t see any other great options in town that provide the same, as you [Wilder] mentioned, perfect configuration for our current needs as well as flexibility for future needs, while providing an almost four and a quarter million dollar savings to the district. That’s hard to deny, or hard to imagine anybody in the public being upset with us moving in that direction,” Jones said.