Opponents of a $15 million to $20 million plan by the DuPage Housing Authority to convert the former home of a Roman Catholic religious order into an assisted-living facility told the Oak Brook Plan Commission that it was not financially feasible.
“You’re going to end up tearing down that building because it’s a bad idea,” said Constantine P. Xinos, president of the Briarwood Lakes Homeowners Association. “The building is not functional.”
The plan calls for building 93 assisted-living apartments in the former St. Paschal Friary, which overlooks Illinois Highway 83 south of Oak Brook Road.
The building’s imposing stone and red brick exterior would be preserved, but most of the interior would be gutted. A dining room would be built in what is now the friary courtyard, and space would be set aside for lounge areas, a gift shop, hobby and craft rooms, a library and physician examination rooms.
The housing authority plans to offer a variety of residential units, including studios and one- and two-bedroom apartments.
Most would be rented at market rates, expected to start around $3,300 a month, though about 20 units would be reserved for people with lower incomes, said John Day, housing authority president.
The renovations would be financed with tax-exempt bonds and grants.
A market analysis suggests there will be a need for assisted-living units in the area, Day said.
A supporter of the plan, Audrey Muschler, noted that the friary was a nursing home for retired Franciscans from the late 1960s to the early 1990s.
She said the housing authority’s plan was a “preservation of our heritage.”
The friary was built by the Franciscan order of priests and brothers in the 1950s and 1960s on about 90 acres of the former Mayslake estate.
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The last of the Franciscans moved out a week before Christmas in 1991.
The DuPage Forest Preserve District bought the property in 1992 to preserve it as open space, but had little interest in using the building.
In late 1999, the district reached a tentative agreement with the housing authority to sell the friary and about 6 acres of land around it for $1.
The deal was contingent upon the housing authority winning zoning approval from Oak Brook. The property currently is zoned for recreational and conservation use.
A second Plan Commission meeting is expected before members make a recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals. The project would be a new venture for the housing authority, whose main business in recent years has been administering the local end of a federal program that provides rent subsidies to low-income people.