Yorkville School District Y115 plans fast move into old city hall building

YORKVILLE – Yorkville School District 115 plans to move its central administration offices into the former city hall building early in June.

The school district is purchasing the 800 Game Farm Road building from the city of Yorkville for $700,000.

The district is expected to spend a further $350,000 to renovate the building, Director of Finance Operations Kreg Wesley said.

Most of the work will involve installing walls to create new office spaces, Director of Facility Operations Heather DiVerde said, along with new carpeting, paint and ventilation work.

The city of Yorkville moved its offices and police headquarters into the newly renovated professional building at 651 Prairie Pointe Drive on April 21. The Yorkville City Council will hold its first meeting at its new facility on May 9.

An agreement with the city will allow the school district to gain access to the 20,000-square-foot property before the sale closing date later this month.

When the renovations are complete, the district’s top administrators will move out of their offices at 602 Center Parkway, which is to be transformed for use by the district’s “transition” special education program, a state-mandated service for those ages 18 to 22.

Next door, the 604 Center Parkway building, which houses the district’s Center for Innovation and hosts school board committee meetings, will remain unchanged.

Once the administration has vacated its 602 Center Parkway offices, work will get underway to repurpose the space for the special education program.

Wesley said the school district has budgeted $366,000 for the work. In this case, DiVerde said, much of the project will involve tearing out office walls to open up the space.

Currently, the school district sends transition students to a special education cooperative housed at Plano High School on a contractual basis to provide the service.

Director of Student Services Melinda Lasky said the program is designed to teach job skills to the students.

Lasky said that there are numerous businesses in the surrounding area, presenting an opportunity for the transition students to obtain jobs to which they would be able to walk.

Until now, enrollment in the program has not been sufficient to justify changing the contract arrangement.

However, the transition program is expected to have 25 students by the start of the 2024-25 school year, Lasky said.

About nine of the students are expected to attend the program at the renovated Center Parkway facility this fall, with the transition program to be phased in at the new location over the next two or three years.

Ultimately, the district expects to save a considerable amount of money.

Currently, the district pays $43,000 per year for each student in the program, Lasky said, with the cost expected to rise to $68,000 within three years.

By bringing the program to Yorkville, the district will be able to provide the service at a cost of $31,000 a year for each student, she said.

The $700,000 cost for the purchase of the old city hall building, the $350,000 for its renovation and the $366,000 for work at the Center Parkway pro[erty will be paid from a capital development fund that was established with a $9.3 million bond issue in December 2021, Wesley said.