Poettker Construction Selected as General Contractor of New Cahokia High School
The 180,000 SF Building Will Accommodate 1,100 Students
At a special board meeting Wednesday, Cahokia District 187’s Board of Education selected a contractor to build the new high school, which officials hope will be complete by June 2026.
The board awarded the building contract to Poettker Construction Co., which had the lowest base bid at $81,525,000.
“I really appreciate the opportunity … to be able to propose on this project. It is a very important project for the community, and we realize that, and we realize the importance of being on time, in budget and delivering it safely as well,” Ryan Diekemper, vice president of preconstruction at Poettker, said at the board meeting. “We are very committed to that.”
The district began with eight contractors and narrowed them down to four after holding a pre-bid meeting in May.
The board approved the final design for the new Cahokia High School by FGM Architects in June.
The 180,000-square-foot high school’s address will be 815 Camp Jackson Road/Illinois Route 157, directly southeast of the former Parks Air College and current Cahokia Heights Fitness & Community Center. The whole campus will sit on 48 acres the city of Cahokia Heights donated to the school district.
A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for October 18 at the new high school’s address.
“This will be a beacon as Cahokia Heights take the next step toward doing some quality things,” Ed Hightower said at the board meeting.
District 187 brought the veteran metro-east educator on as a project consultant and board representative for the new high school project last December. Hightower is serving in a similar role for Venice District 3, which is building a new elementary school.
The current Cahokia High School is about 73 years old. According to the district’s most recent safety survey in 2012, the school had about $26.47 million in health and life safety repairs between the four buildings.
Now, district officials estimate the school needs more than $30 million in repairs.
The new school is being financed with $72.58 million in lease certificates the district issued in March in addition to about $20 million in funds the district built up in its budget by supplanting some of its expenses with COVID-19 relief funds from the federal government.
District 187 didn’t have to seek voter approval in a referendum due to an exception provided by the state legislature when it passed the fiscal year 2024 budget implementation bill.
The district has been on the Illinois State Board of Education and Capital Development Board’s list of pending applications for school construction grants since fiscal year 2005, but state funding for that program dried up around that time and only specific projects addressing emergency needs have been approved in recent years.
The district also held two bond referendums for the high school in the early 2010s that failed.
