Wheeling’s failure to issue a building permit for a Montessori school not only delayed the project but has added more than $500,000 to the cost, school officials allege in a lawsuit.
“We’re suing so that they’ll pay us what they owe us and issue a permit,” said Sandra Mosetick, board president of Alexander Graham Bell Montessori School, which planned to build near Chicago Executive Airport. “We were about to go out of business.”
The suit, filed last week in Cook County, alleges that Wheeling issued a permit in July for the school, now operating in Prospect Heights, to build at 9300 Capitol Drive, just west of airport runway 6-24. But the project came to a halt when the Federal Aviation Administration raised concerns that the school site was in a runway safety zone.
Village Manager J. Mark Rooney said Wheeling is waiting to hear from the FAA before issuing a permit. “It will happen as soon as the FAA gives the letter to the school telling them there’s no conflict.”
The FAA’s airport division has signed off on the plan but it is “pending an official airspace review by our air traffic division,” said FAA Great Lakes regional spokesman Tony Molinaro, who estimated that could take two weeks.
School officials went to the courts to try forcing Wheeling’s hand after making it clear they wanted a permit by Tuesday, Mosetick said. “They weren’t calling our lawyer, they weren’t doing anything,” she said.
Village officials have suggested issuing a “foundation only” permit for the building, Mosetick said, an idea she said she would welcome.
The FAA told airport authorities that a school in that location could jeopardize future grants and possibly require repayment of $100 million in grants made in the last 20 years since the airport, formerly Palwaukee, was acquired by Wheeling and Prospect Heights.
Airport authorities countered with a plan to close the runway. But pilots of smaller single-engine planes fought the proposal, citing safety concerns, and Wheeling and Prospect Heights officials last month voted against the closing. The pilots were happy but the school project remained stalled.
In response to FAA concerns, the school proposed a change in layout, eliminating an area of its parking lot and a light pole that were the only part actually in the runway protection zone.
The Montessori school is in its 20th year of operation.
The lawsuit also seeks damages for interest expense on the mortgage for the time of the delay, architect and builder fees for evaluation of at least one alternate site the airport offered to swap last year, increased construction costs, operating losses for the school because of the delay and reimbursement for loss of use of the parking area that is in the runway zone.
“It’s going to take some time to get through the suit and the allegations and determine their accuracy,” Wheeling Village Atty. James Ferolo said.
