Chicago’s next mayor could determine fate of controversial Near South Side high school plan

For Bronzeville community leader Roderick Wilson, the April 4 mayoral runoff between Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas represents not only a new era of City Hall leadership, but also a chance to reverse plans laid by the administration of Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

As executive director of the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing, Wilson is among long-standing opponents of Lightfoot’s plans to construct a $150 million Near South Side high school atop Chicago Housing Authority land, at the former site of the demolished Harold Ickes Homes public housing complex.

The location, at 24th and State streets, has also raised the concern of some elected officials and Board of Education members, one of whom Lightfoot replaced before she lost reelection by failing in February to advance to the runoff.

“At least we’re at a point where we have more time,” Wilson said of the impending $10.3 million land deal, which includes $8 million in tax increment financing funds granted by the City Council in December. “Hopefully the new mayor can come in and say, ‘We don’t want it.’”

Proponents of the school also have their hopes for renewed momentum pinned on the new mayor. Chicago Public Schools indefinitely postponed town hall and planning meetings regarding the site in February, following an upswell in opposition.

“I’m hoping to see a mayor and a city leadership that can bring these communities together,” said South Loop resident Rishi Agrawal, an attorney and CPS parent who helped organize a Facebook group of around 400 members dedicated to discussing plans for the high school.

“There’s just not a good public school option for high school in the area,” he said. Agrawal and his wife have each served two terms on the Local School Council of South Loop Elementary School, one of the top-performing elementary schools in the district, which drew them to the neighborhood around 15 years ago.

Agrawal said he experienced firsthand what he calls a “strong and desperate need” for a new high school, when the eldest of his two daughters hit middle school and applied for selective enrollment, a competitive process that grants students entrance to schools outside their district-defined neighborhood boundaries.

“When you’re a seventh grader, there’s a huge amount of pressure for you to get all A’s and then to score very high on a test that you take in your early part of your eighth-grade year,” Agrawal said. “It’s stressful. It’s emotional. It’s painstaking. It overtakes your kids’ lives and their mind and their emotional state.”

Agrawal said he found district presentations on the site’s public transit access and the number of public housing units to be provided at a neighboring site compelling. But the specific location isn’t parents’ priority so much as simply ensuring their kids have a strong neighborhood option, he said.

“If there is another reasonable location … and if it can be handled in a fairly reasonable time frame, by all means, we would completely support that,” Agrawal said.

Opponents press candidates to reconsider

At a news conference outside City Hall March 16, Wilson joined a group of about two dozen people to request a meeting with Vallas and Johnson. Opponents want to make their case that the city could provide both affordable housing and a school for students in the growing South Loop and Chinatown neighborhoods — at another location.

“We’ve lived for decades with no investments” in housing “and now the area’s being built up,” Wilson said. The group proposed several alternative locations for the high school: along Wabash Avenue; at The 78, a large-scale development planned along the Chicago River’s South Branch; or at a site at 18th and Canal streets that state Rep. Theresa Mah, D-Chicago, and Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, recently held up as an alternate site. Jones College Prep, a CPS magnet school in the South Loop, could also become, in part, a neighborhood school to serve area teens, opponents of the planned site say.

“We are saying we want housing in our community,” Wilson said, arguing the city had fallen short of its promise to rehouse residents displaced during public housing demolitions during Mayor Richard M. Daley’s years in office and had since prioritized the wealthy.

The Near South high school project wouldn’t be the city’s first time using CHA land for non-housing developments. Wilson pointed to the City Council’s approval of the lease of CHA land by the Chicago Fire, owned by Joe Mansueto, founder of investment research firm Morningstar.

“We’ve got 25 vacant acres of land at (the demolished ABLA homes public housing complex) that’s going to a billionaire,” Wilson said.

With opponents fearful the project will drain funding from existing schools in need of resources nearby, Wilson said additional funding for Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Bronzeville could also be part of a potential compromise and that the group is considering legal action.

Johnson, Vallas promise to hear community needs

At a recent news conference in Chinatown featuring Asian American legislators who announced their support for Johnson, the Cook County commissioner and former CPS teacher said he was committed to finding a solution that could meet the needs of all parties.

“I believe that it’s important that we work collectively together to make the determination,” Johnson said. “There’s more than enough in the city of Chicago for everyone. So whether it’s education, whether it’s economic development, whether it’s housing, we’re not going to pit communities against one another. We’re going to hear each other. We’re going to listen to one another. And, we’re going to come up with a plan that works for everyone.”

Vallas, a former CPS CEO, said that while he’s dubious of the estimated construction cost of the proposed new high school, he’d give “serious consideration” to the existing site. He said that would be part of a broader review of district plans that he would assess on an individualized basis, weighing in after “a conversation with the community … on just what type of high school they would like to see.” He added that the need to reinvigorate underutilized schools and provide new options should not be counterposed.

“I’m going to look at a lot of ideas out there and proposals that have been put forward on how to, you know, not only expand educational options, but how to transform existing schools that have lost enrollment, and how to reinvent those schools so that those schools can be attractive again,” Vallas said.

Neither mayoral candidate directly answered questions about their stance on the current plan for the high school, including its proposed location.

In the meantime, a CPS spokesperson said the district continues to host focus groups with “residents and stakeholders who are interested or impacted by the proposed new high school” serving the South Loop, Bronzeville, Chinatown and Bridgeport.