Joliet Catholic Academy to hold community meeting Wednesday on new stadium plan

Joliet Catholic Academy will meet with neighbors Wednesday to present its plans for an on-campus stadium.

The meeting will be from 6 to 7 p.m. in the chapel inside the school building.

JCA in April sought approval from the city for the project that includes a football stadium and improvements of athletic facilities on an expanded campus that would extend onto the land formerly occupied by the Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home. But JCA postponed its request for city approval after neighbors said they wanted more information and Joliet officials decided to require that the plan get a more rigorous review.

JCA President and Principal Jeff Budz said the school again hopes to present its plan to the city for approval in the coming months.

He noted that the meeting next week will be the third town hall-style meeting held on the project.

Jeff Budz, principal and president at Joliet Catholic Academy, is seen in this file photo. (Gary Middendorf - gmiddendorf@shawnedia.com/Gary Middendorf)

Budz said the meeting will include a presentation with slides and renderings detailing the plan for nearby residents.

“They’ll know what we’re doing,” he said. “The biggest concerns have been with water, parking and traffic.”

JCA is getting out notice of the meeting to residents, said Jori Gura, a neighbor who previously contended that neighbors were not aware of a past community meeting.

The school also provided Gura with flyers advertising the meeting that she and others have been distributing to neighbors.

“We’ve been hitting all the main neighbors, giving it out to them to pass to their neighbors,” Gura said.

Residents Jori Gura (left) and Toni Muren led the neighborhood meeting on the Joliet Catholic Academy stadium plan held Wednesday at the Croatian Cultural Club in Joliet. — Residents Jori Gura (left) and Toni Muren attend a community meeting they organized in June to look at issues related to Joliet Catholic Academy's plans to build a stadium on campus. (Bob Okon)

Gura said she was invited to preview the slideshow presentation that she and others will see Wednesday. She and another neighbor went to see it, Gura said.

“I’m still against this being built in our neighborhood,” Gura said. “I think it’s going to be a lot of traffic and more chaos in the neighborhood.”

The city is requiring that JCA submit an application for a planned unit development outlining its plans. The PUD would be reviewed by the city Plan Commission and require approval from the City Council.

Budz said the earliest JCA could submit an application for PUD approval would be Oct. 14, and he said the school is “hoping” it can do so by then.

Budz said the site needs to be surveyed before an application can be submitted. It cannot be surveyed until the demolition of the Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home is completed and debris from the demolition is removed, he said.

“We’ve got some good reports that that’s going to be done soon,” Budz said.