As part of Evanston’s effort to solicit residents’ input on what to do with its most valuable underutilized buildings, a new city-run website has produced a hodgepodge of competing visions for those properties.
The Putting Assets to Work program launched in 2024 with $985,000 in federal grant money. It aims to redevelop city properties, with a focus on the vacant former Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center, the Evanston Police/Fire Headquarters and the Noyes Cultural Arts Center.
On a city-run website, officials are soliciting proposals via public posts from developers and ordinary residents. Users can upvote and reply to each other’s posts, which will shape how the city ultimately decides to repurpose the properties.
There have been dozens of submissions since September, with proposals ranging from small-scale additions — for instance, a coffee shop in Noyes — to total overhauls, such as converting the former Civic Center into a museum.
With 41 upvotes, the most popular current proposal so far is from developer Scott Henry, who suggested converting the former Civic Center into an affordable assisted living facility.
Henry has experience renovating historic buildings. His firm, Celadon Partners, is in the process of converting Evanston’s historic Harley Clarke Mansion into a community venue. Celadon also completed an assisted living facility in Maywood in 2022.
Henry told The Daily that his proposal, which he argued would be “hard to beat,” was the most pragmatic for the 112,000-square-foot property. He said his firm has a “proprietary financing model” that would allow it to fund an $80 million renovation of the Civic Center entirely through tax credits, without city or state funding.
The project, he said, would create 70 full-time jobs and generate new property tax revenue for the city.
“In our view, it’s a win-win-win,” Henry said. “We’ve done it many times before.”
He added that he has “always” had his eye on the vacant Civic Center. His proposal, he said, has been universally well-received by community groups and elected officials in Evanston and at the state level.
Assisted living costs thousands of dollars per month, and Henry said many facilities charge around $11,000. Meanwhile, he said his proposed affordable units would cost just $850.
“By and large, everyone sees the value here,” Henry said. “Everybody has a loved one that is facing this dire housing situation, and they all get it.”
Other posts on the PAW website have taken a less finance-driven approach, focusing instead on turning city properties into shared residential and community spaces.
Former mayoral candidate Jeff Boarini proposed a 100-unit mixed-income housing development, potentially at the Police/Fire Headquarters, that reserves some units for seniors, low-income residents and people with disabilities.
Boarini told The Daily that his idea was motivated by his experience as the father of a son with cerebral palsy, who he said has faced social isolation even while living in supportive housing in Evanston.
Boarini wants to see the building structured as a “membership community,” where residents and fee-paying members of the public can access amenities such as a gym and a theater.
“I thought that was just a very Evanston idea,” Boarini said.
On the question of financing, he said he has not “thought about it enough” yet, but he envisions a development package funded through grants, private contributions and investor capital.
Other submissions are more unconventional. Actor James Zoccoli garnered 27 upvotes on his proposal to rent out the city’s old properties, especially the vacant Civic Center, to film crews.
“A lot of the deficiencies of this building are actually strengths when you’re talking about film production,” Zoccoli told The Daily.
He said the city’s vacant properties already contain a wide range of potentially usable spaces, from City Council chambers and offices to auditoriums and ballrooms. One room in the Civic Center might even double as the interior of a bank, Zoccoli added.
Evanston has long been used as a filming location, with production crews frequently shooting around the city and local properties often listed on location scouting databases.
Hourly rates for film crews to rent property can range from $45 to $500, which is money that could be put toward renovating other city properties, Zoccoli said.
“It’s going to take years to approve whatever renovations they want to do,” he said of the Civic Center building. “In the meantime, capitalize on what it is.”
In addition, he wrote in his submission that he wanted to turn the Civic Center into a media and vocational training center, with the suggested name “Film Evanston” or “The Evanstonian Film Initiative.” However, he told The Daily, he sees this as separate from and secondary to his renting proposal.
Boarini said Evanston’s experiment in crowdsourcing proposals might help bridge some of Evanston’s political divides.
“This idea — of public input that is genuinely considered and genuinely matters — would go a long way to bringing this city together,” Boarini said. “We have a number of issues that are divisive right now, and we can get past those if we can find some processes that people believe in.”
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