Sharon and Dick Portillo attend the groundbreaking of the new Argo High School arts center July 21. (Chronicle Media)

Hot-dog billionaires Dick and Sharon Portillo stopped by their alma mater, Argo Community High School District 217, July 21 to help break ground on the school’s new $17.5 million 45,000 square-foot addition.

The “Richard and Sharon Portillo Performing Arts Center” is being made possible, in part, thanks to a $1 million unrestricted donation from the couple, said D217 Superintendent Kevin O’Mara.

At the school where thousands gathered in March to hear Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders rail against “America’s billionaires,” local mayors and school dignitaries warmly welcomed Argo High School’s honorary first couple.

The school’s string orchestra performed ‘Don’t Stop Believin’.’”

But some residents worry the arts center is a “Taj Mahal,” too expensive for the small one-building district. They say the project should have been put to the voters of its five blue-collar feeder towns.

Wearing sunglasses and showing off his old-fashioned flip phone, Dick Portillo shared his memories of graduating from Argo in 1957, spending six years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He used savings of $1,100 to start his first hot dog emporium in 1963 in a Villa Park shack with “no bathrooms or running water.”

“You couldn’t do that today,” Portillo acknowledged. Portillo sold his multi-state restaurant empire for $1 billion to Berkshire Partners last year.

“It didn’t happen overnight but it can happen. This is the only country in the world where dreams like this can be achieved,” he said. “You can go as far in this country as your wits and determination can take you.”

Sharon Portillo, a 1960 Argo graduate, remembered how in her freshman year “I met this good-looking dude standing next to me today,” she said. The business “started with nothing,” but grew because of her husband’s “passion, determination and perseverance,” she said.

Members of the Argo High School string orchestra perform at the school’s arts center groundbreaking with construction equipment behind them. (Chronicle Media)

“It means not throwing in the towel when things get a little tough,” she added.

The couple’s long marriage is memorialized with decorative plaques reading “Dick loves Sharon” hanging in every restaurant location, according to press reports.

The Portillo’s restaurant in the couple’s hometown is an economic engine in Summit. The always-crowded Portillo’s-Barnelli’s Pasta Bowl site on Harlem and Archer avenues brings much-needed sales-tax revenue into a town described in a 2015 CMAP report as having “limited retail choices.” The restaurant’s immaculate landscaping and clean dining rooms provide a contrast to the long-empty, blighted former Krispy Kreme Donuts site to the south.

The couple now split their time between Illinois and Florida, when not travelling the world on a 112-foot Westport yacht, as described in recent business publications. They have a strong bond with the high school, cultivated by the superintendent over O’Mara’s nine-year tenure. They look forward to seeing the arts center come to fruition, Sharon Portillo said.

Joe Murphy, district business manager told the crowd at the groundbreaking that the arts center was an investment in the historic school, built in 1920.

“Every improvement we make starts with a central question,” Murphy said. “How can we create an educational experience for our students that best prepares them for their future endeavors?”

The Argonauts’ new 430-seat performance center will give a space to the orchestra, band, chorus and theater programs and replace an outdated 90-year-old auditorium that “can’t even seat the whole student body,” O’Mara said. The building will feature a prop shop, theater classroom, green room and rehearsal space and band and chorale rooms.

But some residents worry the cost is too high. The building risks becoming “Summit’s Taj Mahal,” warned lifetime Summit resident attorney Ted Bojanowski, a former D217 board member.

Architect’s rendering of the new $17.5 million Argo High School Richard and Sharon Portillo Arts Center. (Chronicle Media)

In June, in a 6-1 vote, the school board issued bonds for $18.5 million, or almost $10,000 worth of debt for every student enrolled. The new bond brings the school’s debt level to $29.9 million in General Obligation Limited Tax debt, according to Moody’s.

The board retired a previous bond used to pay for updates to the school’s science labs and then added the new bond without going to referendum.

Replacing the old debt with the new didn’t raise local property taxes, said Board President Terrence Pappas, also an Argo graduate. Pappas said it allowed the school to continue to improve the facilities.

Property tax pain was also diminished when the district beat out more than 100 other applicants to qualify for a federal program issuing most of the debt as interest-free Qualified School Construction (QSCB) bonds — which saves the district $8 million over the life of the loans, Supt. O’Mara said.

But board member Nick Caprio, of Bridgeview, voted against the new expenses without taxpayer input.

“The reason I voted no on that money was due to the fact that I thought we should have a referendum and let the people decide before we spent that kind of money,” Caprio said by phone. Bridgeview taxpayers have among the largest per-capita property tax burden in the state because of costs associated with the debt-ridden Toyota Park sports amphitheater, owned by the village.

Another board member, William Parra, also of Bridgeview, acknowledged that property taxes in the village were high.

“The problem is home rule. [The village] can raise taxes any time it wants to,” he said.

But Parra said investment in the arts center would bring up property values in all five towns that send their students to Argo, which he described as renowned for its string orchestra. The district draws high school students from the City of Hickory Hills, as well as villages of Summit, Bridgeview, Justice, Willow Springs and Bedford Park. The district has an ethnic mix with many first-generation Latino, Eastern European and Arabic immigrant students.

Parra pointed out the district is in good financial health.

“We’ve never been in the red in the 16 years I’ve been on the school board,” he said. The school had $24.2 million in reserves, or more than 270 days’ worth of operating funds, according to a 2015 annual financial report filed with the Illinois State Board of Education.

The school sees itself as a community resource, O’Mara said.

“We believe our school is a reflection of the community. Our board policy is to let any group from the community use the school facilities at no charge,” O’Mara said. “Our taxpayers support us, and we support them with our facility: For wellness, gym programs and [programs with] park districts.”

Board members and the superintendent said they were grateful to the Portillos for giving back to their high school.

“It’s an incredibly generous gift,” Board President Pappas said. “$1 million is a lot of money.”

“The Portillo’s story is really an amazing story,” O’Mara said. “[Richard] started out with one little hot dog stand and he had a vision. We are grateful for their generosity.”

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