Panel worries NU dorms will replace Roycemore School
BY BOB SEIDENBERG bseidenberg@pioneerlocal.com December 16, 2011 1:25PM
Evanston, 12/19/11 John Novick, Roycemore Upper School division head, hauls out boxes Dec. 19. Roycemore School is moving to its new location at 1200 Davis. | Curtis Lehmkuhl~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: January 23, 2012 9:46AM
With Roycemore School moving out of its home of more than 95 years, some community members are pressing Northwestern University to disclose what they plan to do with the property.
Members of a special city-Northwestern University committee received inconclusive responses Dec. 15 after peppering a Northwestern administrator with questions on the university’s plans for the Roycemore School building on the Evanston campus.
The well-regarded private school, at 640 Lincoln St., held its final day of classes Friday. On Monday, the school began packing for the move to the new Roycemore building, the building that formerly housed the General Council on Finance and Administration of the United Methodist Church, at 1200 Davis St.
Northwestern, as owner of the Lincoln property, put the school on notice as far back as the 1990s, that it intended to terminate the school’s lease by the end of 2014.
Roycemore had occupied the Lincoln Street site since 1915.
Members of the joint university-city committee, including 1st Ward Alderman Judy Fiske, pressed Northwestern administrator Ron Nayler for details. Fiske told Nayler, Northwestern’s associate vice president of facilities management, that signs seemed to point to Northwestern adding dormitories rather than office or classroom use, for which the property is also zoned.
Nayler told committee members the school still hasn’t made a decision, repeating what administrators have said for the last year.
“I can’t come to a meeting and say we’ve made a decision when we haven’t made a decision,” he said. “You can badger me about it, you can drill me about it, but it isn’t going to change.”
Nayler told committee members that a decision would be made by spring, at the earliest.
Fiske said neighbors want to know the university’s plans for the property so they can prepare if dormitories, the most “intense” use, are in the cards.
She told Nayler the possibility of a dormitory at the site has already had an effect. Fiske explained that a prospective buyer of one of the old Kendall College properties, near the Lincoln Street site, backed out when hearing dorms might be a possible use.
Another committee member, Thomas Gemmell, pressed Nayler to acknowledge that a dormitory, with the resulting parking and traffic issues, “is going to be a little different” than office use.
“We fully understand … the community’s ranking of issues,” Nayler responded.
Fiske told the administrator that if the university makes a decision, “you can always call.”
Nayler said once the university reaches a decision, Northwestern officials would contact city officials and say, “let’s have a meeting. We want to talk about this.”
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