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Latest CPS Closure: Board Votes to Move Own Headquarters

By Ted Cox | December 18, 2013 6:24pm
 CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett talks with counsel James Bebley before Wednesday's Board of Education meeting, with President David Vitale and board member Deborah Quazzo in the background.
CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett talks with counsel James Bebley before Wednesday's Board of Education meeting, with President David Vitale and board member Deborah Quazzo in the background.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

DOWNTOWN — The Board of Education has approved another Chicago Public Schools closure: packing up the Central Offices and moving around the bend in the Loop.

The board voted Wednesday to approve the move of CPS headquarters from 125 S. Clark St. to 1 N. Dearborn St. next year.

CPS Chief Executive Officer Barbara Byrd-Bennett cited "unutilization" as cause for the move. She said the school district had cut personnel in the Central Offices 34 percent since 2009, leaving their space half empty.

The new site at 1 N. Dearborn, which has a Sears store on the lower floors, was chosen she said over 85 other options studied.

Byrd-Bennett estimated that the move would save CPS $60 million over the next 15 years.

Chief Operating Officer Tom Tyrell said the savings would be used to "support student learning in the classroom."

CPS will lease three stories at the new location or 160,000 square feet of office space, about one-third the space at its current headquarters. It also promises a Board of Education meeting room twice the size of the current room, "giving the public greater access to meeting and events," according to a CPS release.

The move is scheduled for next November.