Joliet Catholic Academy stadium plan faces questions

Opposition to the Joliet Catholic Academy plan for an on-campus stadium will likely be muted simply because of a matter of timing, one opponent said.

The Joliet Zoning Board of Appeals is scheduled to vote on whether the stadium can be built when it meets at 2 p.m. Thursday.

Whether the zoning board vote is final or the matter would next go to the City Council is unclear.

Jori Gura, an opponent of the plan, said she is not likely to make it to the zoning board meeting and neither are other people most affected by the plan.

“Probably not because most people are working,” Gura said.

Gura came to a City Council meeting on Monday night to urge that the zoning board vote on the JCA plan be tabled because neighbors of the stadium are just beginning to hear about it.

“We heard rumors in the neighborhood, but we were not notified,” Gura said.

She surveyed roughly 30 households closest to the proposed stadium site and found only a handful that received any notice of the plan, Gura told the council.

The JCA plan became public last week when the zoning board agenda was posted on the city website on Thursday.

The zoning board will consider a special use permit that may allow the plan to go forward.

Approval from the zoning board is all that is required, according to a staff memo on the project.

“The subject special use permit only requires approval from the City’s Zoning Board of Appeals,” the memo states. “City Council approval is not required.”

But city spokeswoman Rosemaria DiBenedetto on Tuesday said the matter would go to the City Council.

Gura told the council on Monday that the JCA plan could bring 3,000 cars into the neighborhood based on the proposed stadium capacity to hold as many as 7,000 people.

City planners apparently expect fewer cars.

The plan being presented to the zoning board provides for 350 parking spaces in addition to the 481 spaces now on JCA property.

JCA for decades has played football at Memorial Stadium on Jefferson Street. The proposal calls for a multi-sports athletic facility, which would include football games, at what would be an expansion of the JCA campus on Larkin Avenue.

The stadium and other sports facilities would be located on 45 acres that would include the Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home, which is closed and undergoing demolition.

The nursing home on Wyoming Avenue stands between JCA and houses east of the school. Homes also are located on the other side of Ingalls Avenue to the south of the JCA campus.

The City Council did not comment on Gura’s request that the zoning board vote on the JCA matter be delayed.

JCA has acknowledged for some time that it was considering acquisition of the Our Lady of Angels property for campus expansion including a football stadium.

But the school has yet to make a formal announcement.

JCA President Jeff Budz in a voicemail responding to a Herald-News request for comment said the school was awaiting a zoning board decision before announcing its plans.