To the jubilation of some and the chagrin of others, River Forest trustees have paved the way for the demolition of a school that was designated a national historic landmark less than a year ago.
Just two days after Trustee John Rigas resigned from the Village Board over the issue, Village Board members voted 4-2 recently to rezone Washington School, 7970 Washington Blvd., to single-family residential use from public, recreational or institutional use.
The vote effectively allows the village–and the District 90 school board, which owns the property–to get around an injunction issued last April that prevented the demolition.
Saying the school “constitutes an asset to the community,” Cook County Circuit Judge Robert Boharic had issued the injunction after ruling that a village ordinance requiring demolition of the school before any sale was improper. He also disputed the school board’s claim that the ordinance was necessary for “maintenance.”
District 90 had planned, with the village’s blessing, to demolish the school, subdivide the property and sell the lots for residential development. The money from the sale would have been used to build a $1.4 million gym at Roosevelt School, 7560 W. Oak St., and two classrooms at Willard School, 1250 Ashland Ave.
School officials said the improvements are badly needed to handle growing student enrollment. Without the sale, they said, the district likely would have to seek voter approval through a referendum measure to raise taxes to fund the expansion.
The school building’s demise has polarized residents. As the Village Board prepared to vote, supporters of the proposal to rezone sat grouped together in the boardroom, while some opponents of the rezoning wore large, circular badges bearing an “R-2,” for the residential zoning category, slashed by a red diagonal.
So volatile has the issue become that Rigas, who had been a trustee for eight years and who lives near the school and considered buying one of the lots on the property after the proposed demolition, resigned from the Village Board. His resignation statement cited “30-plus residents who have succeeded in creating havoc in my neighborhood.”
“There would definitely be a legal challenge if I didn’t resign,” Rigas said, noting that many demolition opponents suggested a possible conflict of interest on his part even after he recused himself from voting on any Washington School proposal before the board.
“Once I recused myself, I didn’t feel comfortable coming back to it,” he said.
Washington School defenders, including residents who joined together as the Neighborhood School Group, maintained in court that the building, designed by Dwight Heald Perkins and his son Lawrence in 1929, is architecturally significant.
In addition to its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, the building is included on the Illinois Landmarks Preservation Council’s list of the state’s most endangered buildings.
The school “was included on the National Historic Register because it reflects good design, major architects and encapsulates in one structure major developments of school design in the 20th Century,” resident Jeanette Fields, a past executive director of the Chicago Architecture Foundation and opponent of the District 90 plan, told trustees before their vote.
“Demolishing this treasure to get funds to add rooms to lesser structures doesn’t make good sense.”
But District 90 officials noted that much of the school’s original design has been demolished over the years. They won’t reopen it as a school, as some residents have suggested, because the financial obstacles involved are too great, District 90 Board President Carlotta Lucchesi told trustees.
“The reasons (not to reopen Washington) remain as compelling as they were in 1979,” when the school was closed, Lucchesi said.
Several residents urged trustees to seek other solutions to the school conflict, including granting the site dual institutional- and residential-use zoning and letting the real estate market decide the more appropriate use.
Trustee Dale Rider, a former Parent Teacher Organization president at Washington who voted against the measure, said he would prefer that the River Forest Park District and the school board share the use of the property.
“It’s our last remaining property” that can be developed, added Trustee Joanne Heppes, who also voted against the rezoning.
“This building could be used by another institution,” she said.
But the 4-2 vote to rezone reflected the belief on the part of the majority that it was in the best interests of residents, said Village President Frank Paris.
“This is an issue that has weighed heavily on all the board members for the last two or three years, and I don’t think anyone would have voted if they didn’t believe they were doing the right thing,” Paris said.
Washington School supporters are prepared to continue the battle in court.
“We’re not afraid of heavy litigation fees,” said Neighborhood School Group member Art Curtis.
Another supporter, resident Carl Washburn, said that 1990 census reports indicate that the minority population has boomed in the southern section of the village, and therefore any government action that affects that side of town has a large effect on minorities.
If that effect is negative, Washburn said, the village and the school district would have to prove in court that they weren’t discriminating against minority residents. Even failing to reopen the school could be interpreted as an adverse impact, he said.
“I was a teacher, and I believe in public schools,” Washburn said. “And I don’t like what they’re doing. I personally will take them to court if no one else does.”
