Couple aiming to turn McHenry’s Landmark School into community center win bid to buy building for $50K

In the coming weeks, a new Facebook page will allow McHenry residents to monitor the progress of – and learn how they can help with – the creation of a nonprofit group that aims to turn the former Landmark School into a community center, one of its organizers said.

Organizers will be asking residents for ideas, via the social media site, about “everything that can be done there,” Tom Popovich said. He and his wife, Ginelle Popovich, have vowed to turn the downtown building into the Landmark School Community Center.

“Community members can ... tell us their ideas and their recommendations,” Tom Popovich said.

The McHenry School District 15 Board this week approved the Popovich family’s $50,000 bid to purchase the 131-year-old school.

Making the school into a community resource would be “a great way for Landmark to live on,” school board President Chad Mihevc said just before the unanimous vote.

After public hearings, the District 15 board voted a year ago to close the school at the end of the 2024-25 year, citing costs upwards of $10 million to bring the building up to modern standards. Those potential costs include adding an elevator, putting on a new roof, expanding the gym, updating heating and air conditioning systems, and tuck-pointing.

Students who’d attended the year-round, school-of-choice program at Landmark will start classes next week at their neighborhood schools.

It was not an easy choice to close the school, board member Lindsay Turner said before the vote. She also read from the Popoviches’ letter to the board that was included in their bid document.

“I think everybody needs to hear” the plans, Turner said. “I have spoken to people who have had the same thing happen – tears in their eyes. I am so excited for this possibility. Thank you for putting this out there and caring so much about the community."

That letter, which also was forwarded to the McHenry City Council in July, suggests a community center “open to anyone and everyone that wishes to use it for an approved nonprofit purpose.”

Unapproved purposes would be anything involving politics, alcohol or drugs – including marijuana – according to the proposal. Approved uses could be meeting space for scouting clubs, tutoring, adult clubs and classes, nonprofit fundraisers, practice space for bands, a weekly soup kitchen, and AA and NA meetings, according to the letter.

As an endowment fund is built up to operate the center in perpetuity, the proposal also suggests the top floor could be made into studio apartments – eventually transitioning into units for Home of the Sparrow or the McHenry County Housing Agency, according to the Popovich letter.

The school board received 15 to 20 emails from residents in favor of the idea, Turner said.

“We hear the community when they speak, and it does weigh on us every single time,” she said. “We want to do what is best for McHenry. I believe to my core that this is what Landmark should be.”

This was the second round of bids to sell Landmark. All bids in the first round, opened in March, were turned down, as the bidders included contingencies in the sale, including receiving zoning approvals from McHenry.

One of the bidders in the first round, Wauconda-based True North Properties, approached the City Council in July to see if there was interest in making the building into apartments.

The company, known for rehabbing old buildings into apartments around the region, dropped its bid 90%, from $210,000 to $21,000, between the two bid periods. Another early bidder did not turn in a bid package for the second round.

On social media, many people called for the building to be used as a community center, historical museum or other public space, board member Jennifer Synek said.

“You were the only one to put in a proposal,” she told the Popoviches, adding that some commenters “had plenty to say about what they think should be done [and] who should be doing it. Few will take action behind their words.”

Currently, the building is zoned for office use, with a special-use permit for a school, city Community Development Director Ross Polerecky said.

A change of use for Landmark – including using it for assembling people – would trigger the need for a new conditional-use permit. Polerecky said he was in the process of researching what local building codes would require for the structure as well.

The city’s Landmark Commission also gave the building protected, landmark status last fall. Any changes to the exterior would need approval by that commission and the City Council.

McHenry Mayor Wayne Jett said he looked forward to seeing the proposal and making “the project work.”

“If that is what they envision in the location, great,” he said, adding that the city is set to work with the Popoviches on the center moving forward.