BBCHS enters pre-construction phase for $70M building upgrades

BRADLEY – Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School has entered the pre-construction phase for the $70 million facilities upgrades which will soon transform the school.

After a robust community engagement process and campaign last year, voters in November approved a referendum funding $62 million toward facilities upgrades, including a remodeled cafeteria, a fieldhouse addition, a new circulation corridor, reconfigured classroom spaces and other features.

The remaining $8 million of the cost is slated to come from the high school’s reserve funds.

Ramie Kolitwenzew, chief school business official for BBCHS District 307, said two meetings on facilities programming pre-construction have been held in the past two weeks with representatives from BLDD Architects and PSI Construction.

The representatives met with different focus groups to discuss the school’s needs in order to start “putting pen to paper” with how spaces will be designed.

“It’s really just taking an opportunity to bring all of the different parts together, to hear the voices for the needs and the ideas behind the spaces,” she said.

Kolitwenzew said that last year’s community engagement process was used to identify major priorities, like getting all students under one roof by eliminating mobile classrooms, improving building security, expanding cafeteria space and adding a field house.

“Now [the process is] really identifying and fine tuning those general spaces,” she said.

The BLDD Architects representative explained that the goal is to create spaces that can be used throughout the school day. For example, a practice space for the robotics team could also be used for instruction and teacher collaboration.

“We think mostly about that in those larger learning spaces, like the lab spaces, that are going to be mutually beneficial for everybody in the building,” Kolitwenzew said.

While the pre-construction meetings will continue, Kolitwenzew anticipates construction won’t take place until fall.

However, this summer, the process of bringing equipment on-site and other preparation work is expected to begin.