With three packages of bids completed to date, Evanston/Skokie District 65’s construction of Foster School in the Fifth Ward remains on target to stay within its $48.5 million budget, officials told the school board Monday night.
“With 90% of the budget under contract, we’re looking still in good shape to meet the overall budget of the project,” said Kirby Callam, the district’s director of strategic project management.
The board did, though, have to approve a change order on Monday night, adding $117,704 to the budget for stone. That’s because the contractor that completed ground improvements to the soil on the site starting last summer realized their equipment was sinking when they began work, according to Callam and Brian Kronewitter, executive vice president for architect and construction manager Cordogan, Clark & Associates.
That situation required bringing in more stone to stabilize the ground enough to stop the equipment from sinking further, Kronewitter explained. Cordogan Clark had included extra stone as a contingency in the budget for a later bid group, but the sinkage forced them to buy more stone much sooner in the process, he said.
Despite the change order, the first bid group for site clearing and ground improvements still came in under budget, while the second bid group for the building foundation and precast concrete went about $300,000 over budget.
But the third bid group, for much of the building’s core mechanical infrastructure, “was a saving grace for this project so far,” Callam said, as it came back $3.5 million under budget and allowed the district “to add to our design contingency quite considerably.”
The construction timeline, shown below, has the building structure starting to go up in March and the foundation scheduled to be complete in mid-April. The final two bid groups account for flooring, kitchen items, playground equipment and pavement, among other things.
The entire project is projected to be completed by July 13, 2026. That date represents when officials hope staff can begin moving into a fully furnished building before the 2026-27 school year begins a little over a month later.
District opens principal applications
The school district’s human resources department plans to post the Foster School principal position and begin accepting applications later this week, according to Charmekia McCoy, chief of academics and schools management.
Candidate interviews will take place in March, with the district aiming to make a hire in April, McCoy said. The selected principal will start work July 1, she added, so the person can spend the year setting up a curriculum, meeting students and families and working with the construction team and the Foster School Transition Committee.
That committee has met several times already and is in the process of discussing such matters as school colors, logos and principal selection criteria. A survey is also scheduled to go out to families this week asking for the qualities they want in a principal, McCoy said.
“We reference that as a ‘planning principal,’ and typically you have a year to engage in the planning, the design,” Superintendent Angel Turner said. “The team is managing a lot of stuff now, but identifying the school leader to be part of all those conversations will be hugely important as we continue to build out this school.”
Foster School construction remains under budget with ‘90%’ of contracts done is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.