The latest round of improvements at Oak Park and River Forest High School took a step closer to implementation Thursday as the School District 200 board approved the scope for what it calls Act 3 of the multiyear Imagine OPRF long term projects plan.
The proposed $84 million project would focus on the school’s performing arts spaces, which officials said have become outdated and cannot accommodate modern educational needs.
The board approved the budget and the plans for Act 3 at Thursday’s Board of Education meeting.
The third of five planned phases in the Imagine plan, school officials said Act 3 will replace outdated facilities that are up to a century old in the southwest end of the building with new construction. Some of the high school’s current learning spaces are too small and overcrowded, don’t meet accessibility requirements or sound-safety standards and lack storage space and practice rooms.
The next step in the process will take place July 16, when the board will decide whether to authorize paying architects $750,000 to create design documents.
The first phase, Imagine OPRF Project 1, wrapped up in 2023 and included renovating 65 classrooms, the addition of a two-story student resource center and 15 new classrooms including two science labs, and the renovation of the student activities center, which is now called the student commons. The $42.2 million project was paid for using existing cash reserves.
The $102 million Imagine OPRF Project 2 began in summer 2024 and has largely wrapped up and is set to be unveiled later this summer.
That phase replaced century-old facilities at the southeast end of the building and incorporated boys, girls and all gender locker rooms, a swimming pool with spectator balcony, multi-purpose/dance gym, PE classrooms and athletics office, PE equipment storage and conference room and other facilities mostly related to athletics.
Act 3, in addition to reimagining performing arts spaces, also addresses physical education facilities and stormwater runoff via a green roof designed to incorporate future solar arrays.
District officials have not yet determined how to pay for Act 3’s estimated $84,604,977 cost, and there is not a set date for when construction for Act 3 will begin.
With the Imagine OPRF Project 2 ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled for Aug. 22, school officials are optimistic about the next phase.
“It feels great to be addressing student needs,” said Karin Sullivan, District 200’s executive director of communications and community relations. “It’s been really gratifying that this has enhanced the student experience, and with Act 3, these are sorely needed facilities.”
Other projects have been made on the schools including work on the athletic fields that was in collaboration with the Park District of Oak Park, which included a new 400-meter track and multipurpose field as well as a renovated softball field. The multipurpose field included a baseball diamond, which in total cost $16.5 million and was completed fall 2023.
A $12.5 million geothermal project that incorporated a new green energy system under the football field was expected to be officially unveiled July 1.
After Act 3, two other phases, Projects 4 and 5, are planned but details are still in the works.
Imagine Project 4 is planned to address administration, student services and health services offices, special education classrooms and offices for learning development and emotional programs as well as renovating a nursing lab and a kitchen and the north cafeteria.
Imagine Project 5 is slated to focus on the student commons on the third and fourth floors along with classrooms, breakout collaboration spaces, family and consumer science labs, a field house, solar panels and art labs.
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