Joliet Public Schools District 86 officials were on hand at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School Tuesday morning to break ground on the school’s new expansion, which will include four classrooms and a gymnasium.

The 14,900 square-foot addition to the school, located at 2651 Glenwood Ave, is the final of three large projects funded by the $99.5 million referendum approved by voters in April 2023.

Construction on the $14 million project will begin this week and continue through the school year, with the new facility set to open for the 2027-28 school year.

Currently, Jefferson school does not have a full gymnasium and uses a multipurpose room as its gym, cafeteria, and auditorium.

Once the addition is complete, the multipurpose room will be used primarily as the school’s cafeteria and physical education classes will move to the new gym.

“I’m so happy, we’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” said Jefferson Elementary Principal Consuelo Ramirez. “We are bursting at the seams right now, so this will give us more space, and we have a great P.E. teacher who can’t wait to get into a real gym.”

The other two large projects funded by the 2023 building referendume are the reconstruction of Gompers and Hufford Junior High Schools, which will be completed in time for the 2026-2027 school year. The two new schools will host their ribbon cuttings in August, according to District 86 Board of School Inspectors President Matthew Pritz.

The Jefferson groundbreaking took place on the last day of school for District 86 before summer break, and 450 Jefferson students and staff were welcomed to watch the proceedings.

More than a gym

In addition to the new building, the project will include renovations to the parking lot and student drop-off/pick-up area to help relieve traffic congestion along Glenwood Avenue.

Other improvements to the building includ new bathrooms, improved accessibility features, and the reconstruction of “pass through classrooms.”

“This building was built in the 1970s and its kind of a circle, so some of the rooms you can’t access directly without passing through another classroom,” District 86 Director for Communications and Development Sandy Zalewski said.

“They’re going to reconfigure those classrooms, and some of the rooms that only have curtain walls separating them to get rid of those issues,” she said.

Once completed, the offices and main entrance of the school will be moved to the new addition, and the current office space will be repurposed, though Superintendent Theresa Rouse said the plan for the relatively small space has not yet been finalized.

“We’re grateful to the community for their support with the referendum,” said Rouse. “We’re honoring the commitment we made to make sure our facilities are amazing for years to come.”

Rouse also noted that improvements to Jefferson Elementary have been a topic of discussion for 20 years at the district.

Construction will be able to continue throughout the 2026-27 school year on the new addition, because of the abundance of open space on the property for the construction.

Renovations on the existing classroom spaces will likely be completed next summer while students are out of school.

“I’d like to give a huge thank you to the Joliet community for supporting us with the referendum,” said Pritz. “We’re excited to get started on this, and looking forward to holding the ribbon cuttings at the two junior highs.”

“All three of these projects are reflections of the city’s confidence in our school district,” said J.D. Ross, one of the co-chairs of the referendum committee. “These improvements were badly needed to accommodate the students and new technology. I consider them all godsend projects.”

In addition to the three large projects, the remaining referendum funding provided smaller renovations to all of the district’s other buildings, including new furnishings, HVAC upgrades, and parking lot improvements.

The new addition to Jefferson Elementary was designed by Healy Bender Patton & Been Architects, and Nicholas & Associates, the same firm that has managed the Hufford and Gompers projects, is the construction management firm overseeing the project.

Officials from both firms were on hand with district officials for the groundbreaking.