West Ridge Center, a former Highland Park elementary school site, is an aging building that needs extensive renovation, and its configuration no longer meets the needs of the Park District. The building currently houses Park District early childhood programs, youth enrichment, athletics, and performing and creative arts programs. Due to the building’s age, condition, functionality, and aging infrastructure, the Park District’s Master Plan, GreenPrint2024, recommended the replacement of the building.
In 2019 the Park District conducted a GreenPrint 2024 Review and Amendment, which expressed the need for a multi-purpose facility as well as the need to address West Ridge Center to provide flexible programming space to better serve the community with youth and adult programming, and an opportunity for a gymnastics studio.
The Park District has started the design process for a new community center at West Ridge Park to replace the existing West Ridge Center. The plan to build new on the southeast section of West Ridge Park is supported by a preliminary planning assessment completed in 2022.
There will be various community meetings along the way. Meetings and information will be posted here.
The Park District will endeavor to have minimal impact on programs.
The Park District is exploring the opportunity to relocate the gymnastics program that is currently housed at Centennial Ice Arena to the new building at West Ridge Park. A new building offers the opportunity to construct a gym that will have the capacity to meet the demands of the program.
The Park District started the first phase of the design process, schematic design, in August 2023, renderings of the proposed building will be shared with the community for comment once available.
The plan is to construct a new community center on the southeast side of West Ridge Park. Once that building is constructed, the existing West Ridge Center will be demolished.
In early 2022, the Park District hired architectural firm Holabird and Root to study West Ridge Center recognizing the need to meet growing demands for updated facilities, services, and programs for the community. The firm’s tasks included building and site visioning, site analysis, programming, planning, and preliminary design. Holabird and Root studied three options: renovation, hybrid: renovation and addition, and build new. The study took a holistic approach to the entire site, including user group and community input, and working within a budget of approximately $15 million.
The study’s results aimed to answer the critical question of whether to renovate or build new. Renovation options were determined to be costly upfront, would not meet program needs, and would carry long-term costs for continued maintenance of an aging building. New construction stood out as the best option. A preliminary site evaluation recommends placing a new facility in the southeast portion of the park and demolishing the existing building once construction is complete.
Construction is anticipated to begin fall 2024 and extend through the first part of 2026. Operations at West Ridge Center will continue through the construction. Athletics programs that currently use the fields at West Ridge Park will be relocated.
This project is rooted in the Park District’s GreenPrint Master Plan which supports addressing the aging West Ridge Building. The GreenPrint Update confirmed the recommendation and highlighted the need for multi-use space to be flexible to better serve the community. Holabird and Root modeled three different schemes through the preliminary planning study. The scheme to build new is recommended as the most cost-effective scheme to achieve the goals of the Park District within the project budget.
