Construction could start in a matter of weeks after Joliet Catholic Academy received City Council approval in a divided 6-3 vote for its plans to add new sports facilities, including a football stadium.

“We’d like to start March 1,” Ryan Quigley, director of institutional advancement and chief spokesman for the project, said before the start of a City Council meeting Tuesday.

During the meeting, Quigley faced a scolding from council member Jan Quillman, who questioned where he lives and where most JCA students live as she led the council opposition to the project.

Quillman, Larry Hug and Juan Moreno were the council members voting against the JCA plan. Mayor Terry D’Arcy and council members Pat Mudron, Cesar Cardenas, Suzanna Ibarra, Joe Clement and Sherri Reardon voted for it.

Quillman sided with neighbors who contended that the football stadium would flood the surrounding neighborhood with unwanted traffic.

Three neighbors spoke against the project, including Vivian Brown, who said, “Our community does not need a stadium with so many people coming onto our small streets.”

“You’re disrupting these people who don’t make hundreds of thousands a year,” Quillman said, suggesting that the JCA plan was a matter of income disparity and outsiders vs. local residents.

“These are people’s homes, and you’re going to disrupt everything,” she said.

Quigley and other JCA representatives said they believe a traffic plan, additional campus parking and other features in the project would prevent excessive spillover into neighborhood streets.

Pressed by Quillman, Quigley said he lives in Shorewood, and 33% of the 539 students enrolled at JCA live in Joliet, making it the town with the highest number of students at the school.

Supporters of the JCA stadium plan said the new facilities would help secure the school’s future in Joliet.

Mudron noted that the city in recent years has lost Silver Cross Hospital, which moved to New Lenox, and the Joliet Country Club, which shut down.

“We cannot afford to lose another large operation like JCA,” Mudron said.

The JCA expansion will be “an asset to the city and to the neighborhood,” Mudron said. “We in the city need educational options, both private and public.”

JCA did not threaten to leave Joliet if it did not get approval, although some opponents had suggested that the school should move to a new location if it wants a football stadium.

The JCA football program is a legendary high school sports program in Illinois, although the team has never had an on-campus stadium. For decades, the team has played at Memorial Stadium on Jefferson Street, which is owned by the Joliet Park District.

“JCA has the winningest football program in the state that doesn’t have its own stadium,” said Sister Jean Bessette, president of the Joliet-based Sisters of St. Francis Mary Immaculate.

The order started St. Francis Academy, a girls high school that merged with Joliet Catholic High School to become Joliet Catholic Academy. The school has been at its present location on Larkin Avenue since 1957, and the religious order has owned the land since 1924.

The school is located on the edge of the former Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home, also built by the Joliet-based religious order on land that it has held for a century. But the nursing home was shut down in early 2023, creating the opportunity for JCA to buy that land from the order and expand athletic facilities.

More than a football stadium

The football stadium has received the most attention, but it is one of many facets of the JCA project.

The first phase of the project, which is expected to start this spring, will not include stadium construction.

It will, however, include the installation of field turf, which can be used by the football team for practices and by the soccer team for games.

It also will include new tennis courts and an additional campus parking lot, which JCA said should be sufficient to handle football spectators for the biggest games.

JCA has made arrangements with the nearby University of St. Francis nursing college and the Habitat for Humanity store to provide overflow parking when needed.

Quigley said the school’s capital campaign has raised $12.75 million, which provides enough money to cover the estimated $6.85 million cost of the first phase of the project.

He has said that more money needs to be raised to build the stadium, which is in the project’s second phase.

The third phase will include new baseball and softball fields. JCA also plans to build a fine arts center.

JCA representatives have said the improvements are needed to attract students and remain competitive with other high schools, which have similar facilities.

The plan includes improvements to other facilities already used on campus for sports.

“The only new sport being brought on campus is football, but it’s a big one,” council member Larry Hug said.

Hug said he would only vote for the plan if JCA would put in writing that the stadium would be used exclusively for school events.

Quigley said JCA intends to make the stadium available to youth sports programs, which is similar to a practice at other high schools, including Joliet Central and Joliet West.

“To get kids to come to the school, we have to get them on campus,” Quigley said.

JCA President and Principal Jeff Budz, in brief remarks to the council, said the expansion plan “is about our future, the growth of our school, the growth of our community and the health of our school.”

Three residents spoke in favor of the plan, including neighbor Annette Jelinek, an alum of the school.

“I like having a school as my neighbor,” Jelinek said. “I think them being there is an asset to my neighborhood.”