Frederick Quinn Corp. participated in a dedication ceremony on May 13 for Gurnee School District 56’s Prairie Trail School.
FQC President Jack Hayes, School District 56 Superintendent John Hutton, Past Board President Heidi May, new Board President Jim Blockinger and more than 250 members of the community were in attendance to dedicate the newly constructed school, which helped replace one of the most flood-prone buildings in Illinois.
In addition to providing construction management services for Prairie Trail School, FQC was instrumental in helping pass a referendum to fund the $20 million construction project. The new 90,000-square-foot school was built to help replace the flood-prone Gurnee Grade School. For years, the school district has been dealing with regular flooding issues at the old school, and community members would often have to line the building with sandbags to protect it for students. Thanks to the work of FQC and other members of the project team, the referendum passed in November 2010, and construction of the brand new Prairie Trail School started in summer of 2011. Students were transferred to the new building by January 2013.
Hayes said FQC was honored to be part of a project that directly benefited the families of Gurnee and Wadsworth.
“We were involved in the campaign strategy for the referendum all the way through the whole construction process,” Hayes said. “We became invested in the outcome. It’s not just about building a building. It’s about how it impacts the local community.”
FQC was also dedicated to involving as many local businesses in the construction process as possible. The construction company was able to successfully award roughly $7 million of services from businesses in the North Lake County region.
“It was important to the district to have the community involved, and we did our best to support that goal and to complete the project on time and under budget,” Hayes said.
Prairie Trail School is located on a 75-acre parcel in the Village of Wadsworth and currently houses more than 550 third- through fifth-grade students. Each grade level has its own wing, and individual classrooms are designed around a community learning area called a “pod.” This unique design feature gives teachers an extended learning space where they can educate students in a team environment. Built with the future in mind, the new school can accommodate up to 650 students and was also designed to earn the Energy Star designation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
