National-Louis University, which has operated since 1886 from its main campus in Evanston, has set its sights on the century-old Du Page County Courthouse complex in Wheaton for its newest campus.
The university is hoping that the Du Page County Board will approve the sale of the complex to the school, which also has campuses in the Loop and in Lombard. The County Board is divided on the question of the future of the complex.
”Wheaton and Du Page County are a great location for us, and the old courthouse is a very viable solution for our growth needs,” Delbert Stoner, the university`s vice president for finance, said Monday.
”We are desperately in need of space,” he said. ”The courthouse lends itself to such an operation.”
Stoner said that if the sale is approved, the 7.5-acre site would serve both part- and full-time students from the west suburbs, but there are no plans for student housing. The university currently serves about 16,000 students annually at its other facilities.
The value of the site, based on a county appraisal, hasn`t been made public, but Wheaton officials have placed the value of the land alone at more than $3 million.
Two years ago, the university tried to buy the empty New Trier West High School campus in Northfield for a reported $22 million to $25 million. The deal went sour after Northfield village officials passed ordinances that would have forced the school to pay a large sum in impact fees.
Wheaton Mayor Gwendolyn Henry said Monday that the city has no impact fee requirements and that she didn`t envision any city financial requirement causing a roadblock to the sale.
”They would have to acquire the normal building permits and such, but I don`t believe we have anything else that would affect them,” she said.
The county does have an impact fee ordinance, but a spokesman said such fees are not imposed on non-profit institutions such as National-Louis.
A special committee made up of county and city officials last week recommended sale of the complex. The panel said keeping the property or leasing it would be too expensive to taxpayers and harmful to the rest of the Wheaton business community.
Selling it for institutional use would be the best solution, according to the committee recommendation.
The school changed its name last year from the National College of Education to National-Louis University after one of its board members, Michael W. Louis of Wilmette, an investor and a heir to the Johnson Wax Co. business, gave the institution a $33 million endowment.
The university opened new colleges of business and liberal arts last year after a century as a school devoted to teaching careers.
Stoner discounted reports that the school would definitely move its administrative offices from Evanston to Wheaton if the sale goes through.
”That has not been determined,” he said, but the purchase would mean the transfer of teaching facilities from the two Lombard school buildings where National-Louis now holds classes.
Besides the three Chicago-area campuses, the school operates academic centers in Virginia, Missouri, Flordia and Wisconsin and in Germany. It also conducts extension classes at more than 50 other sites.
County Board members opposed to selling the downtown courthouse complex, which includes six buildings, contend it will be needed again within several years to accommodate the continued growth of the county judiciary, which moved into a $53 million courthouse on Wheaton`s west side earlier this summer.
The university already has told county officials that it would lease back the old county jail, which is still being used to house the county`s work-release program.
County and city officials agree that no matter what becomes of the old courthouse, the historic brick facade must be maintained.
