Green Street detour set Thursday as McHenry High Lower Campus gets HVAC upgrade

Traffic on Green Street in McHenry will be detoured Thursday as McHenry High School District 156 upgrades the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system at the Lower Campus, city and school district officials said.

While a crane is in place to remove the rooftop equipment, from about 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Green Street will be closed from Waukegan Road to Main Street. Traffic in either direction will be routed to Third Street, McHenry Public Works Director Russ Adams said.

The $250,000 project replaces 22-year-old rooftop heating and cooling equipment serving a gym at the Lower Campus, Hugh Flack, director of buildings and grounds, wrote in an email to the Northwest Herald.

“There are two units that will be lifted off the roof via crane lift. Two new units will be hoisted and installed in their place,” he wrote.

The older units were electric, but the new ones use natural gas for heating the school, he said, adding, “This should result in a significant cost savings for the district electricity-wise.”

Going into the end of June and into the Fourth of July holiday, McHenry has no major road construction project that should affect traffic, Adams said.

After the holiday, however, work is expected to start on McHenry’s $1.2 million reconstruction of Venice Avenue and Court Street along the Fox River between Green Street and Riverside Drive.

The city is installing a new sanitary sewer, curb and gutter, and improving drainage and sidewalks.

“The goal of the project is to rehabilitate Venue Avenue with pedestrian connectivity from Miller Point [Park] to Green Street,” Adams told the City Council on May 19, when the contract was approved.

About 20 city parking spaces off Court Street will be unavailable during the reconstruction, Adams said.