North Shore (Illinois) School District 112 has completed a $40 million renovation of Ravinia Elementary School in Highland Park.
The Record North Shore reports that the overhaul of the more-than-100-year-old school building includes completely updated interior spaces, ADA-compliant features like elevators, eight new grade-level classrooms and a geothermal heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system.
“This building is more than just modernized or expanded or pretty,” Ravinia Elementary Principal Courtney Gilkison said. “It is every one of those things, don’t get me wrong, but it is also a nod to all those before us and planned for all those who will be here after we’re gone. It’s a perfect blend of history and innovation.”
While the school was being renovated, Ravinia students spent the past two years at Green Bay Early Childhood Center.
The renovation kept the building’s red-brick exterior intact while gutting much of its inside to create an “open-concept” floor plan between its centralized library, special instruction spaces, gymnasium, cafeteria area and new wing of larger classrooms.
Inside classrooms, individual desks have been swapped out for larger tables, which should help with facilitating collaboration among students.
Other new features: sound padding in a number of the classrooms, lighting designed to match student’s circadian rhythm, a lunch-service space where food prepared at Edgewood Middle School will be made available for Ravinia students, a courtyard, and an accessible playground.
Vince Procaccio, an architect who worked on Ravinia Elementary’s renovations, said one challenge was to make the old building ADA-compliant by knocking down all three floors in its middle part and holding up its exterior while construction crews rebuilt it into a level two-floor schoolhouse.
The architect is Wight & Company, and the builder is Gilbane.
