A local couple who recently bought Trinity International University’s Bannockburn campus for $20 million hope to turn the 115-acre property into a “community hub” centered around youth sports.
Bannockburn residents Anna Donato, president of the newly created Donato Foundation, and her husband, Anthony, CEO of Donato Solar and GAIL Technology, bought the campus in January, after a deal with Texas developer Hillwood fell through.
Now four months in, the Donatos have begun hosting children’s sports at the campus’s soccer fields and the renovated indoor basketball courts at the 25,000-square-foot Meyers Sports Complex, part of “Phase One” of their redevelopment vision.
Anna Donato said the foundation and idea for a youth sports center came about from her personal experiences as a mother. The couple have three young children, and she said she’s been to “countless” games, tournaments and events.
She’s seen how her children have built personal and social skills through sports, and the foundation is meant to bring those opportunities to other families, she said. The nonprofit also aims to take down some financial barriers in kids’ sports through scholarships and grants.
Anna Donato recalled seeing hundreds of children playing outside on the campus’s fields a few weeks ago.
“That’s what I picture; that’s the vision,” she said. “Just kids playing, having fun, learning.”
She said numerous youth sports organizations have reached out about using their courts, fields and other indoor areas, showing a clear need for such a facility.
“The goal is to lease these spaces as much as we can, because they’re here and there’s so much need in the community for youth sports,” Anna Donato said.
According to a release from Trinity Western University in Canada, which has absorbed Bannockburn’s divinity school, the Bannockburn campus was founded in 1961, then known as Trinity College and Seminary. The seminary was renamed in 1963 to the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Commonly known as TEDS, the divinity school was originally founded in 1897.
The school faced declining enrollment in recent years that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, Trinity International University announced it was moving the school fully online by fall of 2023, and in March of this year TWU announced it was to be the new home of the campus’s divinity school.
Trinity wasn’t actually the original planned location for their organization, Anthony Donato said. In June, he’d actually purchased the Bannockburn Lakes office park, with plans to modify one of the buildings into a children-oriented property and potentially turn a parking lot into a turf field.
Trinity was under contract with Hillwood to become an industrial park at the time, and there wasn’t any interest in their pitches about utilizing the outdoor fields for kids’ sports, Anthony Donato said.
He had been working on the office park for seven months when he heard the Trinity deal had fallen apart, and he jumped at the opportunity, getting a lender to help put together a $20 million offer.
“I called everyone I could as fast as I could to get in,” he said.
His offer proved enticing, likely in part because he was able to close quickly, he theorized, which Trinity needed after Hillwood stepped away. The couple purchased the campus in January.
“Now all my great ideas that didn’t perfectly fit at the office park can fit here, and I can take the ideas to the next level,” Anthony Donato said.
While the foundation has been utilizing the sports complex’s basketball courts and the soccer fields outdoors, hosting local leagues for basketball, volleyball, futsal, soccer and flag football since March, Trinity is continuing some operations on campus through July for their grad program, the couple said.
In a case of accidental synergy, an adjacent property is also being redeveloped into a sports center. The Chicago Stars professional women’s soccer team is getting a new training facility along Interstate 94, just south of Trinity.
“The stars aligned,” Anna Donato said, laughing. “We found out after we had purchased the property. It was just the best neighbors you could have.”
The couple described the youth sports center as Phase One of the redevelopment. Once it’s established, they’ll move on to Phase Two — retail development in the northern 50 acres of the property, such as restaurants and entertainment offerings, and the creation of community spaces.
“A place where kids can meet after school and work on a school project, or community members can have their book clubs. We can work with local schools to have a book club,” Anna Donato said.
The couple couldn’t give any exact plans at this point, but they plan to keep as many of the original buildings as possible, saying the Waybright Center, Rolfing Memorial Library, Lew Building, and Meyers Sports Complex are likely to stay. The library could become a new community center, Anna Donato said, and they wanted to have green spaces for families.
The future of the campus’s apartments and dorms is less certain, although they floated ways to repurpose the spaces as housing for summer camps or tournaments.
But the first steps will be less grandiose than new retail or a community center. Anthony Donato said he’s hoping to get the grass fields converted to turf by this winter.
Bannockburn was well-positioned to be a “community hub with youth sports,” Anna Donato said. And the youth sports center will continue Trinity’s local legacy as a community space, instead of redeveloping it into an industrial area.
“We absolutely want to honor the legacy and the tradition of Trinity,” Anna Donato said. “We’ve been members of the community for 10 years. Trinity has been a huge part of Bannockburn.”
