Late Monday night, four hours into a marathon meeting that featured protests, budget cut proposals and just about everything in between, the Evanston/Skokie District 65 school board had a decision to make: already dip into contingency funding for constructing the new Foster School in the Fifth Ward, or delay the completion date by two weeks and rebid a construction package that came in over budget?
The board chose the latter, risking a later completion to save an estimated $200,000 to $300,000.
The board had this discussion on Monday because it was scheduled to approve all of the packages in the project’s second bid group, which cover building concrete, precast concrete, structural steel, and site work and utilities. All bids except for structural steel came in within the budget, but Cordogan, Clark & Associates — District 65’s architect and construction manager — only received one bid for steel at a price 10% over budget, lead architect Michael Perez and construction executive Ben Nelson said.
If the school board had stuck with the sole bidder, it would have required spending about $282,000 from a pool of emergency funds for unexpected expenses incurred during the course of construction.
Instead, the district directed Cordogan Clark to rebid the steel package in the hopes of receiving multiple proposals at a cheaper price. But savings are not guaranteed.
Rebidding means an overall two-week delay to final project completion, which is now set for July 27, 2026, according to Perez and Nelson. The board has not yet approved a calendar for the 2026-2027 school year, but the first day would likely be three or four weeks from that date.
“I’m not going to lie, that date terrifies me. That’s a date projected still over a year away, with no delays that might still happen in the next year,” board member Biz Lindsay-Ryan said. “So while I definitely would like us to save money, if the school can’t open, that’s going to cost us a lot more.”
Nelson tried to assuage those concerns, saying that he’s “not overly nervous” and that “we’ve yet to miss a date that we’ve proposed on a schedule for a school” on any project the firm has completed.
“We don’t anticipate missing this deadline,” he added.
The possibility of saving up to $300,000 was enough to entice most board members. “It feels worth it,” Vice President Mya Wilkins said. “It’s a lot of money.”
Perez said that while dipping into contingency funds is never ideal, he didn’t have many concerns about doing that at this point. Because crews have already excavated the Foster Field site and conducted site improvements ahead of laying the building foundation, Cordogan Clark is dealing with fewer unknowns and construction risks than other projects might present, he said.
“In our estimation, this is not a scary thing, dipping into the contingency now,” he said. “But, just obviously knowing the financial situation, [we] wanted to present two paths for you to consider.”
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