Exciting progress for the new Foster School (Evanston / Skokie District 65)

1/4/2025

The school board has approved $23.4 million in construction contracts for the new Foster School, with bids coming in under budget this has allowed a substantive increase in the project?s contingency fund and potentially a reduction of the total project cost. As the Architect and Construction Manager for this project, our Target Value Design and Construction process has worked brilliantly to drive efficiencies and maximize value on this important project for the community.

The new state-of-the-art school has the capacity to serve approximately 600 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Since the closing of the original Foster School in 1979, students who reside in the Fifth Ward experienced the loss of a neighborhood school, with the reduced sense of community, busing to schools outside the district, and lack of access to before and after school programming this entails. The new Foster School is a walkable neighborhood school designed to remedy this while providing an enhanced 21st century learning environment.

Through careful design and competitive bidding of a series of alternates, this project provides Evanston?s Fifth Ward high quality architecture for a very reasonable cost.

The full Evanston Roundtable article can be read here