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Wentworth district detectives prepare to move in…
Costly move downtown called into question by recent renovations at Pershing
Road
By Tom Sharp
 Paul Vallas called
the central administration’s headquarters at 1819 Pershing Road a
“financial sinkhole,” and the central administration is now
spread among eight buildings that stretch from downtown on Clark Street
to Julian High School. The total cost of this relocation was about $100
million. The three buildings on Pershing Road were sold to the City of
Chicago for one dollar.
However, evidence is
mounting that the costly move was unnecessary. More and more city agencies
are rehabbing portions of Pershing Road and moving back in.
One of three buildings
that once served as the Chicago Public Schools central office headquarters
at 1819 West Pershing Road is about to add some new occupants from the
City of Chicago’s Police Department. A CPS source first told Substance
of rumors that as many as 300 police officers were moving into the fifth
floor of the center building. The story was partially corroborated by
a police department spokesman who told the Wentworth Police District Detective
Unit will move to 1819 West Pershing Road.
“I’ve been
told that our detective unit will move in less than one month,” a
Wentworth Police District spokesman who identified himself only as Mr.
Hines, told Substance in a phone interview on February 19th. “As
far as I know they’re doing some repair work on the upstairs part
of the building here [5101 S. Wentworth Ave.] that is occupied by the
detectives. The move [to Pershing Road] is probably temporary,” Hines
surmised.
In 1998, Paul Vallas,
CPS board member Norm Bobbins, and Chief Operations Officer Tim Martin
took turns condemning the Pershing Road complex at various press conferences,
and making wild (and ultimately false claims) about the savings to be
accrued by having the Board of Education move to new digs at 125 S. Clark
Street. Less than three months later, the city’s Water Department
moved in to Pershing Road.
The same “temporary
move” claim now made by the Wentworth police department was made
in 1998 by the Board’s Office of Operations. “The Water Department
has a $40,000 per month lease up to November 1998 for the first floor
and outer parking area of the west building,” William Holden, then
Communications Officer in the Board’s Office of Operations, told
Substance in March, 1998. “It’s a temporary location until that
department can find a permanent home.”
Now, four years later,
the Water Department is occupying several floors of the space at Pershing
Road and most of the parking area. No one at the Water Department would
return Substance’s phone calls to tell us if there are any plans
to move from Pershing Road.
In the last three years,
parts of other city departments including the Library Services, General
Services, and a portion of the “Rodent Control” unit moved into
Pershing Road. There have yet to be any signs that anyone has left.
Board’s last Pershing Road residents finally began to move into
‘new’ old warehouse units
While the fifth floor
of the center building at 1819 West Pershing Road was being cleaned and
repaired for the Wentworth detective unit, the few remaining Board occupants
on the fourth and fifth floors of the west building were beginning to
move to their ‘new’ home—two old dilapidated warehouses
at 47th and St. Louis, less than three miles from the Pershing Road complex.
These buildings were purchased by the CPS Board in January of 1999 for
$1.77 million as part of the odyssey of the Board’s central office
staff that would ultimately take them to five different buildings and
several schools at the cost to the city’s taxpayers of tens of millions
of dollars.
The Board’s “central
office” staff are now housed in offices at 310 S. Michigan, 125 S.
Clark Street, 1819 W. Pershing Road, 47th and St. Louis, Medill School
at 1301 W. 14th St., Julian High School at 10330 S. Elizabeth, Wadsworth
School at 6420 S. University, and no doubt another school buildings as
well.
The 47th Street warehouses
remained empty, except for one security guard, for three years because
of their decrepit condition. Informed CPS sources have told Substance
that more repairs to the roof and replacement of the large overhead doors
at the warehouse docks would each cost millions of dollars. The Board
recently budgeted more than $3 million to make repairs at the 47th Street
warehouses.
“I don’t
think they’ve repaired the roof yet,” an informed central office
source told Substance. “They’ve made some nice offices and partitions
and did some electric work, but other things haven’t been touched.
The [overhead] doors are so bad that I heard they can’t open and
close them without something breaking down.”
In answer to a question
from Substance, the source said, “So far only the Office of Accountability’s
test-scoring unit has been completely moved.” This winter’s
version of the CASE tests were delivered to and scored at the 47th street
warehouse. According to another source, “Former Student Records should
be next [to move], around late March or early April. I heard two [members
of that unit] got a letter telling them they would be laid-off... Not
enough guts to tell them to their face... I’ve heard nothing about
the Tape Library [moving to 47th Street], late April or early May, I guess.”
Regarding the Tape
Library, most of the tapes and some equipment were moved to the 47th Street
warehouse more than two years ago where they have remained, unused, while
the staff remained at Pershing Road.
Calls to Tim Martin
in the Office of Operations and to Anita Rocha in the Department of Contracts
and Procurement to get more information about the move and the conditions
at the 47th Street warehouses were not returned as of press time.
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