After scuttled efforts at selling co-ownership shares in the mansion and renting it for short-term stays, the commercial real estate executive who paid $9.5 million for retired Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan’s massive mansion heads to the Highland Park City Council on Monday with detailed plans to convert the home into a living museum.
John Cooper, a Lincolnshire resident, brought a concept for the plan to Highland Park leaders in December, and he now has fleshed it out with specifics involving his business plan, access to the property, parking and economic impact. Calling the 37,700-square-foot mansion Champions Point — for promotional reasons, Cooper doesn’t directly refer to Jordan because of potential trademark or right-of-publicity claims — Cooper told the Tribune he envisions tours of the mansion and its surrounding property as a way for people “to have introspection.”
“They can look inside themselves and think about, what does it mean to be a great person? Am I living that life right now, and if not, what could take me from here to there?” Cooper said. “I want people to leave this experience better than they came.”
Cooper’s plan is a significant departure from prior ideas for the mansion, which famously sat on the market for more than 12 years, with Jordan once seeking as much as $29 million for it before lowering his asking price to its final level, $14.855 million. Cooper purchased the Highland Park mansion, which sits on 8.4 acres, in December 2024.
The plan also is aimed at minimizing its impact on the neighborhood. Cooper has had discussions with Highland Park’s Park District, which owns the Heller Nature Center, immediately to the north, and he is proposing visitors access the property from a path extending south from Heller, and that visitors to park off-site and take buses to Heller.
“One thing that’s really important to me — I don’t want to disrupt the character of the neighborhood or my neighbors,” Cooper said in an interview. “I need to be able to do this in a way that isn’t disruptive and that actually gives back a lot. We have off-site parking in Bannockburn and then a shuttle bus would run every 15 minutes to Heller, with people walking on existing trails. There would be one short path extension — about 40 feet at the end, and no trees would have to be cut down.”
Cooper also is proposing removing Jordan’s uniform number — 23 — from the South Gate of the property, which he believes would lessen the number of visitors on the street.
According to Cooper’s economic impact report, the property would attract 300 to 500 visitors per day. Cooper is proposing free admission to all Highland Park residents for the first year, annual free field trips for every Highland Park public and private school student, a pilot curriculum for use in Lake County public high schools, 48 days per year of donated use for youth and community programming and the creation of new local jobs.
Highland Park’s city staff has not yet issued a recommendation to the plan. However, multiple community members — including neighbors — submitted their views on the plans to the City Council. For instance, a group of seven households living just to the south of the former Jordan mansion sent a letter to the city objecting to the plan, noting that with the zoning change Cooper is seeking “anyone with property in the middle of a residential neighborhood will be able to come before this city and ask that it be utilized as a place for tourism and commercialization. Is that the tone and path this city really wants to set?”
The zoning change Cooper is seeking would allow a museum use in a residentially zoned area.
In response to neighbors’ concerns Cooper, who would operate the mansion as a for-profit entity, has relocated the proposed path from the northwest corner of the property to the northeast corner. Cooper has also proposed using local nonprofit groups to provide staffing.
Council members will weigh in on the plan on Monday, March 30.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
