by Bob Seidenberg, The Evanston Review
http://evanston.suntimes.com/9481187-417/commission-worries-northwestern...
December 16, 2011 1:25PM
Members of a special City-Northwestern University committee received inconclusive responses Thursday 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, located at 640 Lincoln Street, held its final day of classes today (Dec. 16). On Monday, classes will be held at the new Roycemore building, the former United Methodist General Finance building, at 1200 Davis.
Northwestern, as owner of the 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 University 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 at the Roycemore site, 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 built.
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 the university, once a recommendation had been reached, would contact city officials and say, “let’s have a meeting. We want to talk about this.”
