Old Town School of Folk Music has the hammer to take on $18M expansion

August 23, 2010 | Mark Thomton | Print Article | Email this Article

The Old Town School of Folk Music has contracted Bulley & Andrews LLC to deliver an ambitious expansion project in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago that will be ushered in to the tune of $18 million.

Sam Vaccarello of Bulley & Andrews

The economy has taken its toll on many business that rely on discretionary spending from consumers, yet the growth of the Old Town school in Chicago would suggest that even in the toughest of times, music enthusiasts are willing to pay up.

With an increase in students and demand for more classroom space, the 53-year-old private music school will embark on a 27,100-square-foot expansion in September that will include 16 acoustically engineered classrooms and a 150-seat performance hall.

The new performing arts education facility, designed by VOA Associates, will be located at 4543 North Lincoln Avenue. The site is directly across from the current school. The new facility will come equipped with three dance studios to accommodate for the school’s growing dance curriculum.

Sam Vaccarello, senior project manager at Bulley & Andrews, will oversee the project. The firm received the project after an invitation from Old Town to enter the bidding process.

Vaccarello says that project presents unique challenges for developers as they attempt to design a building that will meet the sound qualifications it requires.

“This kind of construction is more detailed,” says Vaccarello. “Part of our task is isolating sound from one room to another. A lot of thought and effort goes into the designs.”

He calls this process building a “box within a box” as each individual room will have to isolate sound. In many cases, a dance class will be taking place on the second floor directly above an acoustic guitar course. If proper engineering steps were not taken, it would be very difficult to conduct a music class under dozens of tapping feet.

The project will use sprung floors that will absorb the transfer of sound from room to room. Floor and ceiling panels are fixed with isolation pads that leave actual space between them, which then will decrease the ability for sound to transfer from one to another as it will lose its force in the open space.

The building is also designed to achieve LEED Silver certification. Advanced plumbing technology will be utilized to reduce water usage throughout the building and a green roof, with plants native to the region, will be part of the building program. Recycled products, regional materials and renewable resources will also be used throughout the construction, with a majority of construction waste being diverted away from landfill and sent to a recycling facility.

The school has already raised a reported $7.4 million for the project. The expansion will dramatically increase the school’s capabilities as officials project that within five years of opening, the new facility will increase program access by 50 percent and serve an additional 4,800 students weekly.

Vaccarello says that Bulley & Andrews is currently bidding out work for the project, but hopes to begin construction by the end of September. The timetable for completion is one year.

“I’m very excited about this project,” says Vaccarello. “It is going to be a part of a lot of peoples’ lives and that is always exciting for me.”

Tags | Bulley & Andrews, Chicago, entertainment, expansion

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