Joliet Catholic Academy stadium plan will now need city council approval, school spokesman says

A plan for an on-campus stadium at Joliet Catholic Academy will wait at least another month before going to the city for a vote.

The stadium plan was to go to Zoning Board of Appeals for a vote at its June meeting on Thursday after being tabled previously.

The ZBA agenda came out Friday, and the stadium project was not on it.

The JCA plan is not yet completed, city Community Development Director Dustin Anderson said in an emailed statement.

“It is our understanding that Joliet Catholic continues to work on their planned unit development application,” Anderson said. “The city looks forward to reviewing it when complete.”

Anderson did not comment on changes required by the city, but JCA spokesman Ryan Quigley did.

Quigley said the city now wants the school to go through a planned unit development process, which will require City Council approval.

“It will go the the Plan Commission and then to the City Council,” Quigley said.

Previously, the plan only needed approval from the ZBA, which apparently no longer will review the plan.

The ZBA was to vote on the stadium plan in April. But the matter was tabled until the June meeting after nearby residents raised concerns about the impact on the neighborhood.

The vote was postponed in part to give JCA more time to meet with neighbors and discuss the stadium plan.

Neighbors have raised concerns about traffic and other issues that could develop with a JCA stadium being built on the edge of a residential area.

JCA for decades has played football at Memorial Stadium, a Joliet Park District facility located on Jefferson Street.

But JCA holds other sporting events at the school gym and playing fields already on the campus at Larkin and Ingalls avenues.

The JCA plan includes an expansion of other other athletic facilities. But the stadium has been the only issue because of the potential to draw large crowds for JCA football games.

JCA plans to buy property formerly occupied by the Our Lady of Angels nursing home to build the stadium.

Resident Jori Gura said neighbors still are waiting for the community meeting that was to be held after the April ZBA vote was tabled.

In the meantime, residents have scheduled their own meeting for Wednesday to discuss the project expecting that the vote would go ahead as planned.

Gura said the meeting would go on as planned because people have been notified.

“We are passing out flyers,” she said. “By the time we are done, we will have passed out 300 or 400 flyers.”

The neighborhood meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Croatian Cultural Club, located at 1503 Clement St. in Joliet.