Burr Ridge trustees weigh three options to fix aging village hall; board asks staff for refined plans

Village Manager Evan Walter presented trustees with three paths for addressing mounting maintenance and capital needs at the village hall, a 1985 facility with aging HVAC, electrical and structural elements, and asked for board direction on which approaches staff should refine.

Evan outlined option one as a staged renovation to extend the current building’s useful life — replacing four original air handling units, modernizing temperature controls, repiping suppression and domestic systems, upgrading electrical distribution and lighting, addressing first-floor subfloor and foundation issues, and renovating public spaces. He said the scope and staging would be designed to spread work over three to five years and that the proposal trimmed about $1.1 million from initial budgets: “The total is about a million dollars less, $1.1 million less than our original budget,” Evan told the board.

Option two is a roughly 7,000-square-foot addition attached to the police department, with interior renovations, a vaulted parking/stormwater solution to gain spaces, and a not-to-exceed construction estimate Evan placed at $6.85 million (staff subsequently discussed net financing assumptions, land sale proceeds and operational efficiencies that affect net costs). That option would consolidate functions and reduce the village’s long-term footprint from three buildings to two, preserving the municipal campus near the Veterans Memorial.

Option three is a standalone new building (design/build) priced at about $7.5 million for construction and site work, exclusive of land acquisition; staff showed two possible parcels in the business district and a larger parcel at $1.6 million as examples. Evan said the design/build approach offered greater price certainty but would require acquiring an appropriate lot and adding parking and stormwater infrastructure.

Trustees asked detailed questions about HVAC life, elevator and basement occupancy issues, parking capacity for a larger board/training room, and the stormwater engineering implications of vaulting parking over existing ponds. Several trustees expressed support for the attached addition (option two) as the most cost-effective and operationally efficient approach while asking staff to simultaneously refine standalone-building renderings and to explore acquiring adjacent property to improve site layout and parking. No final commitment was made; staff were directed to return with more detailed renderings, refined cost estimates and options for adjacent land.