Stymied by a Park District vote on its first choice, Hinsdale Elementary School District 181 is moving forward with plans to prepare a site for a new middle school on land it owns in Prospect Park in Clarendon Hills.
To ease the squeeze on that property, the school board voted this week to spend $1.65 million to buy four houses near Norfolk and Prospect Avenues that adjoin the parkland it owns. The additional property would provide access from both streets to the proposed school site, officials said.
District 181 had preferred to build the school along Chicago Avenue on the north side of the park instead of along Norfolk Avenue on the south side on the site it owns. It had proposed to swap land with the Clarendon Hills Park District, but the Park Board failed to get the state-required two-thirds vote for the land deal. The Park Board voted 3-2 last month to continue negotiations for the land swap, but the vote wasn’t enough to keep the deal alive.
School Supt. David Hendrix said building along Norfolk Avenue would be a tight fit, but it will be workable when the district buy the four homes and then demolishes them. That, he said, would provide access from both streets and ease traffic concerns.
The school board still is hoping the Park Board will reconsider the land swap.
“The outcome of the recent Park District vote was a great disappointment to the Board of Education, as well as to several of the Park District board members,” said William Oelman, District 181 board president.
“Conversations with Park Board members since the vote, as well as a groundswell of community support that is being expressed in favor of the proposed agreement, provide some hope that the park board’s decision may be reversed,” Oelman said. “However, the school board has no recourse at this time but to seriously consider other solutions.”