Bond Work & Sinking Fund Project Update: January 2024
With the passing of the August 2023 Bond, Berkley Schools teams are busy planning for upcoming construction projects. The Bond passage also allowed the District to dedicate Sinking Fund dollars to additional projects outside of the Bond scope to continue the work of updating facilities.
These monthly Bond & Sinking Fund updates will be maintained on the District’s website. See below for updates on the Phase 1 projects that are taking place in 2024 and 2025.
Project Updates
Design
District-wide Furniture Purchase - Bond
Design teams are meeting to plan for a District-wide classroom and media center furniture upgrade in Fall 2024. The District vendor, MovePlan completed the inventory of all District classroom and media center furniture. MovePlan assessed the condition of all furniture and assigned a grade to each piece. Now they are building a database for the District to utilize to sell, donate or dispose of the existing furniture. Design teams also continue to meet to talk about feedback from the pilot classrooms to narrow down the selections for the final furniture purchase. Feedback meetings will continue through February.
Hurley Field Turf, Track, Lights & Parking - Bond & Sinking Fund
Phase 1 of the Hurley Field construction is part of a larger Bond and Sinking Fund project. It includes: turf, track, relocating discus and shot put, expanded parking and new lighting.
Parking update: A District team continues to refine plans for the expanding parking at Anderson with the City of Berkley and Spalding DeDecker (engineering and surveying firm). The new plans will redesign entrance and exit points, a drop off and pick up outer loop and doubling the available parking spaces. This work will be completed during the track/turf construction this spring and summer.
The BHS spring track and field season will take place at Ferndale High School while construction happens at Hurley Field.
Phase 1 (Burton, Pattengill, BHS) - Bond
Design team meetings are complete for the Berkley High School’s Performing Arts and Science teams as well as the Burton and Pattengill new multi-purpose/cafeteria additions. The architects will now take feedback from the design teams and create refined drawings and plans as the team gets closer to the bidding phase.
The District Field House design team has one meeting left to share needs and design ideas for the new field house. Design teams consist of building staff, District staff, architects and construction management team. These teams are led by Stantec, the District’s architects, and a core team of Berkley Schools Administrative staff.
Maintenance Building - Sinking Fund
The new Maintenance building will be located at the Administrative Offices site in Oak Park, at the end of the parking lot, just north of the Norup playground. The design drawings have gone out to bid. The Bond Maintenance building team will review the bids once the bid window is closed and select the lowest qualified bidders. After the bidders are selected, they will be presented to the Board of Education for approval so work can begin. The timeline includes the building being completed by late Fall 2024.
Traffic Flow - Sinking Fund
The District engaged with Spalding DeDecker to complete a traffic study at Burton, Pattengill and Rogers to see if any additional parking or parking flow could be achieved. The design teams are reviewing the proposals and renderings with building staff.
Baseball/Softball Fields - Sinking Fund
The District will be adding a new home varsity softball field on the Tyler Field, just north of Berkley Building Blocks. The design team, along with Foresite Design, is working on design details and a construction timeline. This new varsity field will include lights, dugouts, concession area and a permanent outfield fence. The work will also include an outdoor restroom location near the field. An additional softball/baseball practice field will be added to Tyler Field in coordination with the City of Oak Park as well.
Planning and discussions are continuing for baseball field upgrades.
Technology - Bond
New interactive flat panels and new classroom sound systems have been installed in all classrooms at Burton and Pattengill. This is the first wave of new Bond technology to be installed. Next up, new clocks will be installed at both buildings during Mid-Winter Break. The Technology team is working with the District vendor to plan out the timeline for the rest of the school installations as well.
Weekly Meetings
The District teams participate in weekly meetings with Stantec (architecture, engineering, design), McCarthy & Smith (construction management), and SES (engineering and mechanical systems) to plan timelines of construction, prepare bid documents, as well as pour over details of the scopes of work. Each project has a standard sequence of work: design phase, project cost estimating, bidding for contractors, awarding contracts, construction phase (demolition and building) and finally, project completion
