Renovation Of Niles Township Special Education School Underway

MORTON GROVE, IL — Educators, administrators and other local officials gathered Monday in Morton Grove to break ground on a $2 million upgrade to the Niles Township District for Special Education's Julia S. Molloy Education Center, 8701 Menard Ave.

“The Julia S. Molloy Education Center has a proud history of providing high-quality instruction to meet the educational needs of the students with disabilities who have attended over the past 50 years,” Tarin Kendrick, the district's executive director, said in a statement. “We are proud to be part of a community who has committed to the Molloy Renovation Project to ensure the needs of today's learners are met.”

The project includes a reconfiguration of the interior and an expansion that will add nearly 18,000 square feet of additional space to the building, adding a new gymnasium at the north end of the building with a second story about it for administrative offices and conference rooms, according to a memo from village staff.

The first floor will be expanded to the west and east to allow for larger classrooms, specialized areas and more appropriate offices. The expansion is meant to meet existing needs and help staff better serve students at the "outdated" facility, district representatives told village staff. The increased building capacity is not expected to come with an increased number of students or district employees, according to the materials presented to the Morton Grove Village Board earlier this year.

The center serves about 110 students from pre-kindergarten to high school from nine member districts from Golf, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles and Skokie (districts 67 through 74) who need special services that are unavailable in their home districts. It has about 65 staff members, according to village staff.

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It is the first addition to the Molloy Education Center for 23 years, according to Senate Democrats, who touted the $2 million in funding earmarked for the project through Gov. J.B. Pritzker's $45 billion Rebuild Illinois capital plan.

State Sen. Ram Villivalem (D-Chicago) said in a statement that he was proud to have taken part tin the groundbreaking.

“This expansion will provide students throughout our community with a quality learning environment tailored to their needs,” Villivalam said.

Sen. Laura Fine (D-Glenview) likewise praised the project, which was designed by Burr Ridge-based Tria Architecture.

"The Molloy School is life changing for the most vulnerable students in our district," Fine said in a statement. "This expansion will allow the school to continue its incredible work of educating our children.”

According to Zoe Heidorn, Morton Grove's land use planner, public schools were exempt from local zoning codes until 2016, so the Molloy Education Center never received a special use permit to operate on the district's 4.19-acre property in the single-family residential zoning district where it was established in 1969.

The Morton Grove Appearance Commission approved the plan Feb. 1, the Traffic Safety Commission signed off Feb. 4, the Plan Commission voted to recommend approval of the plan Feb. 15 and the village board ultimately approved the plan on March 22. There were no votes against it at any point.

The project is expected to cost a total of $15 million, Kendrick told Pioneer Press in March. In addition to the $2 million grant provided through the Illinois State Board of Education, $8 million will come from local districts, $7 million from Medicaid and operating funds that have been set in recent years, plus $3.65 million in special education bonds district officials approved in January.