Loyola’s Plan To Turn Closed School Into Student Housing Could Free Up Local Apartments, University Says

ROGERS PARK — Loyola University’s plan to bring student housing to a shuttered school could free up apartments in the neighborhood, while a shelter planned for the church campus next door could help fill a gap in Spanish-speaking services, officials behind the proposal said Monday.

Loyola University Chicago and the Ignation Mission Center are proposing a joint redevelopment of the St. Ignatius campus at 6559 N. Glenwood Ave. The campus includes a church and rectory that have been empty since 2021, after the Archdiocese of Chicago announced it would merge with nearby parishes, and a school building that has been vacant for nearly 10 years.

The Ignation Mission Center, a layperson-led Catholic nonprofit, is proposing to turn the church and rectory part of the campus into a social services center with a shelter for Spanish-speaking women facing domestic violence, a day care for the children of the women at the shelter and potentially neighborhood kids, a space for religious gatherings and the group’s food pantry, which currently operates at 1735 W. Greenleaf Ave.

Loyola is proposing to demolish the adjacent school and construct a 64-unit building that would house upperclassmen and graduate students who typically live off campus, which could free up more of the neighborhood’s privately owned apartments that are rented by students, university officials have said.

As part of this proposal, Loyola would also donate $625,000 over 10 years to the Ignatian Mission Center to support its programs and would give the nonprofit 1,500 square feet of rent-free community space in its housing building. 

Loyola would need a zoning change and a special use permit to build its five-story student housing building, while the Ignatian Mission Center would also need a special use permit to operate the women’s shelter and other social services on the campus, leaders with the university and mission center said at a community meeting Monday night.

Ald. Maria Hadden (49th), whose ward includes the shuttered St. Ignatius campus site, will be accepting feedback from neighbors on the proposal for about two weeks, she said Monday. There will be an online survey available soon, or people can contact her office directly.

Hadden said Monday she shares some neighbors’ frustrations over how Loyola has handled recent acquisition of properties in the direct vicinity — specifically its purchase and demolition of 1226-1234 W. Loyola Ave., which housed small businesses and affordable apartments — but this is the only solid plan for the empty campus that has been brought to her office.

“As your alderperson, I want to save this church, and I think this is a proposal worth hearing,” she said to the large crowd of neighbors Monday night. “I’m hoping that we can come up with solutions of things that we want, so that we can do this.” 

If Hadden approves Loyola’s requested zoning change, the university would still need approval from the city’s zoning committee and a full vote by the City Council.

Project Would Add More In-Demand Student Housing, Officials Say

Loyola and the Ignatian Mission Center announced their proposal to the neighborhood last week and provided more details on their joint venture during Monday’s community meeting.

Loyola hasn’t purchased any part of the St. Ignatius campus yet. If this plan moved forward, the university would only purchase the former school buildings, said Jennifer Clark, Loyola’s associate vice president of community relations.

The Ignatian Mission Center would retain control over the church and the rectory, said Liam Ford, the group’s executive director.

Loyola explored the possibility of reusing the school buildings rather than demolishing them, but the university couldn’t make converting existing buildings into housing economically feasible, said Kana Henning, Loyola’s vice president for facilities and campus management.

Henning told neighbors there is a documented need for more student housing at the university: Every year, there’s about 300 students on a waitlist, she said. The proposed development would house about 220 students in a mix of two- and four-bedroom apartments, she said.

The U-shaped courtyard building would also have 1,500 square feet of rent-free space for the Ignatian Mission Center with their own private entrance, Henning said. There would be public green space in front of the building abutting Loyola Avenue.

If the approval and permitting process goes smoothly on the development, Loyola could break ground on the residence hall in mid-2027 and open by August 2029, meaning it wouldn’t be a vacant lot for long, like some other Loyola-owned sites nearby, Henning said.

The university also owns several properties on the adjacent block to the east — the 1200 block of West Loyola Avenue — but it can’t make use of those sites yet until the CTA finalizes planned improvement work to the neighboring Loyola Red Line station and tracks, Henning said.

Henning told Block Club the proposed residence hall would be the farthest university building west of its Lake Shore Campus, though some of its residence halls are located just as far north and south from the official campus grounds.

The social services the Ignatian Mission Center would bring to the campus would complement the food pantry the center already runs in Rogers Park, Ford said. The pantry serves about 240-250 families a week, and a lot of those clients have a need for services beyond food, he said.

Ford said the women’s shelter component of the proposal would be modeled after an existing successful shelter system called House of Peace, which works with Catholic Charities.

It would be intended for Spanish-speaking women facing domestic violence, Ford said. Rogers Park has a large Latino and Spanish-speaking population, but it’s somewhat cut off from other Spanish-speaking communities in the city and the existing social services catering to the community, so the Ignatian Mission Center would be filling a gap, he said.

Ford said he expects the childcare center would be dedicated to women living at the shelter, but there could be some spots for neighborhood children. The details of its pay structure are yet to be determined, he said.

The Ignatian Mission Center looked into the possibility of also acquiring and using the former school buildings on the campus, but the nonprofit couldn’t afford it. Working with Loyola on this proposal helps the mission center financially and also brings in more potential volunteers with students living directly next door, he said.

“I don’t see a way forward for us without this Loyola plan,” Ford said. “This would be a great way for the parish’s legacy to live on in a new organization.”

History Of St. Ignatius Church

St. Ignatius was formed by the local Jesuit order, which bought the lakeshore land bounded by Devon Avenue, Sheridan Road and Pratt Boulevard in 1906.

That same year, Jesuits began work on the first St. Ignatius Church, which opened in 1907 at 6435 N. Sheridan Road, according to the Rogers Park West Ridge Historical Society.

In 1922, the Jesuits moved Loyola University from the home of St. Ignatius College Prep in University Village to its lakeshore campus in Rogers Park.

To make way for the university, St. Ignatius Church moved from its lakeshore space to Glenwood Avenue in 1917, inhabiting a classical Roman church that has protections against demolition or significant alterations under the city’s historical survey.

In 1993, St. Ignatius grammar school closed and merged with Northside Catholic Academy. The school building was then used by Waldorf School, which moved to Andersonville in 2018.

As part of efforts to consolidate church resources and respond to declining church attendance, the archdiocese closed St. Ignatius and merged it with St. Gertrude, 1420 W. Granville Ave., and St. Jerome, 1709 W. Lunt Ave.

Editor’s note: Liam Ford works for Block Club in a part-time capacity but has no input on coverage of this topic.