After visiting the residential construction site, we transported over to the school construction site located in Chicago. We were welcomed by project engineer Matt Allen, along with superintendent David and Santiago Martinez. This project is based on a redevelopment of a school; it will be a Christian school from kindergarten through eighth grade. The school was first in operation from 1904, and it was closed in 2014 by Chicago Public Schools. Soon after its closing, people in the area began looting the school but did not take much. For the redevelopment of the school, ARCO must follow historical requirements for the building, as it is a historic building. To achieve this, ARCO was in continuous talks with historic consultants to meet the requirements for the new school to come. This project is projected to cost $11 million in construction costs and $2 million in soft costs. This 51,000-square-foot project began in April of 2024, and it is expected to be completed by May 9, 2025.

The project engineer began by informing us that the school had no updated mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, so ARCO had to bring in entirely new systems. Around 98% of the electrical system is new. 80% of the mechanical system is new in the building, along with 75-80% of the plumbing system. To get the correct material necessary for the building, they went through a week of submittals. Once we got to the second floor of the building, we saw the historic elements of it. The PM informed us that, although the building needs to meet historic requirements, it also needs to meet ADA requirements. When the school was first built, it did not have an elevator; the team made a shaft for an elevator.

As we toured, the project engineer highlighted the small details of the building, such as the
staircase and cabinets. The staircases were kept the same, but they were sandblasted down to the
original metal that was used to make the staircase, and then the thinnest coat of paint was put on top to keep the details on. The staircases had unique details, and they wanted to keep them. The ARCO team planned on keeping the same cabinets for the classrooms, but many of them needed
to be restored, so they went through a process to find a specialized subcontractor needed for the cabinet task. The cost to repair 13 cabinets was a total of $65,000, and they were repaired in multiple spots to exactly match the same color as the original. The tour then continued to the auditorium and to the gymnasium. The gymnasium had unique flooring and basketball hoops,
which are planned to be kept the same. The flooring will be sanded, retaped, and finished up.

While in construction, the ARCO team faced many challenges, which included owner delays on
glazing and delays with doors. Since the building is a clay block building, the team could not drill directly into it. They had to find alternatives to get into the block and ran multiple tests to ensure that the drilling was safe, and the building was going to stay up.

Blog by Yami Perez-Ruiz