Protections for Landmark School building advance but must pass McHenry City Council first

McHenry officials have said at meetings and in conversation that any changes to Landmark School would not go over well with residents.

On Wednesday, the city’s Landmark Commission took steps to prevent that, approving language that would require that anyone who wants to modify the building must first ask the the city. The commission’s report will now go to the McHenry City Council for its consideration, City Planner Cody Sheriff said.

According to that report “any exterior construction work to the principal structure including remodeling, alterations, additions and demolition” would need city review, as would construction on the property that would compromise views of the building.

Built in 1894, Landmark School has educated generations of McHenry School District 15 pupils. Since 2001, the building has been the home of District 15′s only school-of-choice program, offering a year-round school calendar to about 200 to 250 students each year.

Following three public hearings over the spring and summer, the District 15 board voted in July to close the school at the end of the current, school year, citing a report from its engineering consultants. That report estimated a $10 million to $12 million price tag to bring the 130-year-old school up to modern life-safety standards.

A public hearing was held as part of the landmark commission meeting, with the public voicing their support of protecting the building prior to the unanimous vote.

The school was designed by “very famous architect” Gilbert Turnbull of Elgin, known for designing that city’s former city hall and “some of the prettiest Queen Anne houses” there, said Nancy Fike. She was Landmark Commission’s original chairwoman and also served as the longtime administrator of the McHenry County Historical Society and Museum.

“This building is a good example of gothic revival, ... popular after the Civil War to the 1890s,” Fike said.

John Smith, president of the McHenry Riverwalk Foundation, said he toured the building recently with District 15 Superintendent Josh Reitz, including in the building’s bell tower.

“The views from up there are incredible. You see the whole city,” Smith said. “The building is very solid, ... the attic especially. The timbers are straight as an arrow and all hand-hewn and are in superb shape.”

In 2007, as the riverwalk foundation considered extending the riverwalk behind the school on Boone Creek, the group looked towards the school for design inspiration, Smith said. “It is themed after Landmark School” and its bell tower, and the foundation would like to see physical connections between the riverwalk and the school.

He was concerned, however, that too-strident guidelines could be cost-prohibitive for a developer to adaptively reuse the building.

“It will sit there for years if [builders] don’t have the money for it,” he said.

While District 15 has laid out a high price tag to have the building meet the state’s life-safety guidelines for school construction, private owners would not have those same rules, Smith also noted.

Sheriff has been speaking with District 15 officials about the landmark designation for Landmark School, he said.

“Their biggest concern is the economic viability of the structure. I have explained to them there are developers who adapt buildings like Landmark School” and who can maintain the original facades.

District 15 did not send a representative to the landmark commission meeting and was not available for comment.