Recent storms blew part of roof off new home for Sycamore District 427 admin office

SYCAMORE – Sycamore Community School District 427 has postponed plans to move its administrative offices into a former Nicor call center this month after severe storms damaged the building in March.

In an email to Shaw Local News Network, Sycamore Superintendent Steve Wilder said that a portion of the roof on the new District Administration Center, 1947 Bethany Road in Sycamore, blew off during a wind storm in the middle of March. The district purchased the building in 2024 for $2.3 million to transition from the nearly century-old current administrative home at 245 W. Exchange St.

Wilder said district officials took preventative measures to minimize further damage to the Bethany Road building as the onslaught of early spring weather drenched DeKalb County. Those efforts didn’t prove fruitful, however.

“Unfortunately, over the next few days, we received precipitation in the form of both snow and rain that caused some interior damage,” Wilder said.

Officials had planned to begin the move to the new building on Monday, but those plans have been postponed.

“There was some water damage inside the building that impacted some of the ceilings and flooring,” Wilder said. “It wasn’t a single room, but it was focused primarily in the center part of the building where the roof was blown off.”

Wilder said the school district carries liability insurance that provides coverage for situations like the current predicament. In a district social media post April 1, officials announced that insurance will cover the cost of building repairs.

The district does not have a new move in date, however.

Sycamore school board president Michael DeVito said he was aware the district was working with its insurance provider to put in a claim and damage assessment.

“There’s still a lot of unanswered questions, in terms of the exploratory process of the damage,” DeVito said. “Working in insurance I can tell you those are long and arduous processes. I will be curious, and from my perspective, again, in the insurance world I will be following along very closely.”

DeVito, who just won a reelection campaign, works as an insurance broker for MyInsuranceGuy.

As a result of the building damage, Sycamore school district also has postponed its Farewell to Central School Open House event to 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on June 21.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new District Administrative Center has been indefinitely postponed.