Glenview has received a $500,000 grant from the state to help fund a $6.2 million rehab of the Village’s aging Public Works Campus while ensuring the village has enough road salt on the coldest days of winter, officials said.
“We’re really excited about the campus project,” said Public Works Director Joe Kenney. “It’s coming up on 40 years old so there’s a lot of maintenance needs here and we’ve been working with the board and the public for a few years. It’s come together for a project this year.”
He said the Public Works Campus, at the northeast corner of East Lake Avenue and Shermer Road, was developed over three phases during the mid-1980s and that in 2021 and 2022 the village completed a campus needs assessment based upon current operations and site conditions. The resulting recommendations included expanding salt and material-covered storage to increase local capacity and clean up areas where material storage is required onsite, Kenny explained.
Some communities have struggled in the past to get enough road salt, but Kenney said that will not be a problem in Glenview in winters to come.
“We’re doubling onsite storage capacity,” he said. “We’ll be able to store a full season of salt on site.”
“From time to time in the winter there can be concerns on ordering new salt so we’ll have the whole season of salt on hand,” he added. “There’s two other structures that will provide covered storage where as right now the stockpile and storage is outside. We’ll get them under cover. It’ll help clean up the site. When it rains having outside stockpiles isn’t the cleanest thing. These new covered storage areas will provide good protection from the elements.”
He also said there are layout, drainage and paving improvements to improve existing conditions and provide “operational efficiencies” at the site. Construction is slated to start in May and be completed by November. Kenney also said the project will not impact nearby residential areas.
“Our after-hours operations, where we respond to emergencies at night, that will be at the south portion of the site,” he said. “We are lucky to have good screening existing and setbacks from our neighbors so as far as impacts on neighbors before or after they shouldn’t notice anything different.”
In March 2023, the Village Board awarded a contract to Wold Architects & Engineers of Palatine, to design the planned 2024 PW Campus Improvement Project. Last February three construction bids were received for the project and the job was awarded to Pacific Construction Services in Chicago.
This project was “briefed” as part of the 2024 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) and the budget includes $5,938,374 covered by the Corporate, Water, Sewer and Wholesale Water funds, Kenney said. He also said the Village got a $250,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) to support the project and that that dollar amount was eventually increased to $500,000.
“It’s very important,” Kenney said of the grant. “Grants like that with the support of our state senator, Laura Fine, in this particular case, help us move projects forward when they’re needed. That’s helping us do all the storage and onsite work at our campus.”
During 2023 and 2024, the final project design permitting and outreach was completed including a PW Campus Improvement Project Resident Open House last November
“We put our own projects through our own processes,” Kenney said. “The same permits and steps and outreach a private developer would have to do we try to match that on our public projects. That’s what we did here.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
