Four years after celebrating the opening of its new Transition Center, Hinsdale High School District 86 has outgrown the building and is looking for more space.
In 2016, District 86 renovated and expanded a building it owns, at 7302 Clarendon Hills Road in Darien, to provide job and life skills training for people with disabilities after they graduate from Hinsdale Central or Hinsdale South high school.
District 86 also ran its Bridge program, which provides support and academic interventions for graduates who are continuing their education at College of DuPage, from the Transition Center.
When the center, which is between Hinsdale South’s stadium and the Indian Prairie Public Library, opened in August 2016, a total of 54 people, age 18 to 21, were registered in the job skills and Bridge programs.
In the four years since then, participation has grown to 97 in both programs combined, causing the district to lease space in two other locations, in the Community Bank of Willowbrook, on the northwest corner of 63rd Street and Route 83, and in a building in Katherine Legge Memorial Park in Hinsdale.
Enrollment is expected to continue to grow for the next several years. Between 127 and 165 students are expected to enroll by the fall of 2021, the District 86 administrators predicted. They advised 20,000 square feet of space for classrooms, a conference room, kitchens, offices, a sensory room, a treatment room and other facilities, is needed to accommodate that many participants.
The District 86 School Board recently considered ways to accommodate that growth, including expanding the 9,600-square-foot Transition Center on Clarendon Hills Road. There is not enough land there for an addition the size the center needs and still comply with the zoning codes, District 86 Chief Financial Officer Josh Stephenson said.
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The School Board at its December meeting decided to pursue another option, that of renting about 11,500 square feet in a building at 361 S. Frontage Road in Burr Ridge, just southeast of Interstate 55 and Route 83.
Renovating the space to suit the Transition Center and Bridge program needs is estimated to cost $3.8 million.
Monthly rent would be $15,800 or $17,700, depending on the length of the lease, with the landlord offering several months of free rent, Stephenson said.
The district no longer would rent space in the Community Bank or in KLM Park, but would continue to use the existing Transition Center, as well as the new leased space. The sites are less than two miles apart and the leased space is easy to get to and has ample parking, School Board member Erik Held said.
Additional offices in the same building where the district would rent may become available in the future when tenants move out, potentially offering a place to combine the Transition Center and Bridge programs under one roof, Stephenson said.
School members Marty Turek, Held and board president Kevin Camden said they prefer renting space at this point, rather than building a new, larger Transition Center, for an estimated cost of at least $7.7 million.
The district would have to issue bonds to fund new construction, and residents are in the middle of paying for school improvements funded by a $139.8 million bond referendum approved in April 2019.