North Central College plans to buy nonprofit's property near campus
North Central College in Naperville plans to buy the property of the school and disability services agency Little Friends in a process both organizations expect to take about a year.
The college announced plans to buy the Little Friends site at 140 N. Wright St., two blocks east of its campus in the Naperville historic district.
The college owned the property from 1945 to 1989 and used it as dorms until officials began leasing the space to Little Friends in 1975, President Troy Hammond said in a video on the college's website.
"In some sense, this is a reacquisition of property that used to be part of the college," Hammond said in the video.
The college and Little Friends did not specify the price of the property but said the agreement comes at a time when Little Friends plans a move and expansion to a facility just across the Naperville border in Warrenville at Diehl Road and Mill Street.
Mike Briggs, Little Friends' president and CEO, said the agency serves about 800 clients a year, offering a school for students with autism and developmental disabilities as well as adult day services for individuals with those conditions and residential services.
"With our aspirations to try to grow, it became clear that space is going to be an issue to us as we move forward," Briggs said in the video.
Hammond said the nonprofit reached out to the college a few months ago about selling its land. The college, in its 2010 master plan, noted it would be interested in adding Little Friends' 4-acre site to its 68.5-acre campus should the property become available, and now the institution gets to act on that interest.
However, North Central has no set plans for its future use of the property.
"This is all very new," Hammond said. "We haven't made any firm decisions at all yet."
The institutions know neighbors in the Naperville historic district will be curious about potential effects of the future sale, such as traffic, construction and parking implications. So the organizations plan an open forum at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 14, at Ratio Hall in the Dr. Myron Wentz Science Center at 131 S. Loomis St.
One potential upside for neighbors is a college use of the property likely will lead to less school bus traffic, Hammond said. Little Friends' school serves students from 52 public school districts across the suburbs, many of whom are bused there in the morning and bused home again in the afternoon.
Little Friends and North Central expect the process of finalizing the land sale to take nearly a year because of zoning approvals both institutions will require. Little Friends will need permission from Warrenville to use its desired site for educational purposes, and North Central will need to ask Naperville to change the zoning designation of the Wright Street site to the college and university district.
"This is an opportunity for an important piece of property to be used in a way that is very beneficial for the city of Naperville," Hammond said. "North Central College's possibility of thriving as an educational institution will be ensured by the help of this facility and the property."