BBCHS moving along in facilities planning process

BRADLEY – The planning process to renovate and reimagine the physical layout of Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School is moving along.

Within the pre-construction process for the $70 million project, BBCHS is now shifting from the programming phase to the schematic design phase, according to the latest update from Monday’s BBCHS District 307 Board meeting.

The project will be funded through $62 million in tax dollars after voters approved the school’s referendum in November, along with about $8 million from the district’s reserves.

Also Monday, the board OK’d agreements with Chicago-based BLDD Architects, the district’s architectural manager for the project, and PSI Construction, its construction manager, which outline services provided and associated costs and fees.

PSI Construction of Kankakee, which will be responsible for soliciting bids for all of the construction work, will collect a 2.75% service fee of the estimated $70 million project.

BLDD Architects said in its agreement that the project budget will total $70,031,578.

Planning process

Superintendent Matt Vosberg said the district is wrapping up the programming phase, which took place in January and February, and entering the schematic design phase, scheduled to take place from March through May.

In the programming phase, BLDD Architects conducted in-person interviews with groups at the school to better understand functional needs. It also reviewed how the building is currently used to better understand space needs, developed a detailed list of those spaces, and created a guiding document for functional design decisions moving forward.

In the schematic design phase, the architects will begin to get down to the details of how the redesigned building will look.

“So, that is where the architect is doing some real rough estimates and drawings of what we can do based on some of the programming we need,” Vosberg said.

At the end of May, the architects will present a schematic design to the operations committee, then bring it to the full board for approval at the June 9 meeting.

The next phase of the process will be the design development phase from June through September, followed by the finalizing of construction documents from October through November.

The bidding process is scheduled to begin in January 2026.

Board President Justin Caldwell noted that PSI Construction intends to break out the bidding process into multiple phases, which will give opportunities to some of the smaller, local companies to bid on parts of the construction work.

Caldwell also said the board should keep in mind what effect the economy may have on the cost of the building.

“I think that’s an unknown,” he said. “I don’t think anybody can guess that, but I think just as a board, I say that to be prepared because whatever project value we put on this, it has a tendency to sway both ways.”

Possible grants

Caldwell also said he would like the district to look into grants for innovations in construction that might be available from the state of Illinois, which he was made aware of from the Illinois Association of School Boards.

He said the state doesn’t have grants available to schools specifically for new construction, but some may be available for innovation in that new construction – for example, for creating unique science labs, fine arts or special education spaces.

“It seems like there’s a lot of money just being left on the table for that, from the state of Illinois, so [maybe] we could capture some of that and do something innovative,” Caldwell said.

Ramie Kolitwenzew, chief school business official, said the grants she has been discussing with PSI are for energy efficiency and utilities.

“We can definitely do some research and some digging into what’s available,” she said.