SOUTH LOOP — The city's fastest-growing neighborhood is poised to get a new elementary school, according to a report.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has privately outlined plans with neighbors for a new 1,200-student elementary school in the South Loop, WBEZ reported.
Details, such as when and where the school would be built, have yet to be finalized, according to the report. But the new school would answer neighbors' years-long pleas as the rapidly growing area battles school overcrowding.
South Loop Elementary, 1212 S. Plymouth Court, opened for 580 students in 1988 but now has 839, according to Chicago Public Schools. And the South Loop, one of the few city neighborhoods growing in population, is slated for thousands of new homes arriving in the next decade.
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Neighbors had pegged a new school at the top of their wish list for a new neighborhood a developer plans for a 62-acre riverfront tract at Clark and Roosevelt streets, but Emanuel reportedly told neighbors the city will buy the land for the new school, indicating the new elementary school won't be built there. The new school's cost or funding source has also yet to be shared, according to the report.
Spokesmen for Emanuel well as Aldermen Pat Dowell (3rd), Sophia King (4th), and Danny Solis (25th), whose wards cover the South Loop, did not return messages seeking comment.
A CPS spokeswoman previously said in a statement that meetings about school expansions "have taken place at many school communities" including the South Loop, declining to comment further.
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