Fort Sheridan music school faces opposition from Highwood residents as it seeks to build concert hall

Highwood planning and zoning commissioners gathered in May to vote on a local music conservatory’s plans to build a new concert hall on a vacant four-acre plot of land near the Fort Sheridan neighborhood. 

The commission, however, ultimately ran out of time to deliberate on the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory’s petition to get its build site properly rezoned after nearly three hours’ worth of public commentary about the development — and more community members were waiting to be heard when the meeting adjourned at 10:40 p.m.

Individuals opposing the proposed 728-seat concert hall with a 23,000-square foot footprint adjacent to MYAC’s headquarters are set to clash again with the nonprofit music school when the Highwood Planning and Zoning Commission meets at 6 p.m. on June 18 in Oak Terrace Elementary School. 

MYAC President Allan Dennis said, among other benefits, the concert hall would provide sorely needed rehearsal and performance space for its numerous student ensembles that no other venue in the North Shore can accommodate.

“This is a win-win for everybody,” Dennis told The Record. “There’s no reason why those students shouldn’t have the very best opportunity to have a concert hall. It’s not as though they’re taking anything from anybody else. They only need something and it’s not just them; the community needs it.”

But members of Friends of Historic Fort Sheridan, a volunteer group, believe the plan bears too many unresolved issues, like the potential to add traffic congestion to an already densely populated city and compromise the unique visual character of Fort Sheridan, a national historic landmark district.

“This is not about residents versus a music school; this is about preservation,” said John Mellen, an executive committee member of the group, of the Fort Sheridan neighborhood. “Everybody here, 503 homes in this place, everybody moved here because of what had been preserved.”

If the planning commission votes in favor of rezoning the lot from residential to commercial on June 18, Highwood City Council will then vote on giving MYAC’s petition final approval on a later date.

‘This should be a slam dunk’

First established in 1993, MYAC moved into Fort Sheridan’s former stockade building in 2000.

Today, it sees approximately 450 students every weekend during the academic school year as its 40-plus staff members conduct rehearsals for six different classical music orchestras, three jazz bands, three choral ensembles and more than 40 chamber music groups.

While Dennis said MYAC offers its 900 total enrollees an “unequaled” learning experience, the headquarters’ existing two rehearsal rooms reportedly cannot accommodate its 100-plus student orchestras or big bands on stage.  

This restriction requires MYAC to rent offsite venues at Ravinia Festival or Northwestern University. But MYAC won’t be able to rent from Ravinia moving forward and NU’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall only offered the school one open date last spring, Dennis said.

He added that other nearby venues like the Gorton Center or the Writer’s Theatre do not provide the backstage-space needed for multiple performances.

Fighting for limited availability creates challenges for students who must then frequently travel to other venues, sometimes as far as downtown Chicago or Waukegan. Working around unbending venue schedules also forces students to perform weeks sooner than they’re typically ready for, Dennis said.

The school long had plans to expand with a bigger performance hall of its own, Dennis said, so when the U.S. Navy posted four acres of land by the nonprofit’s headquarters for sale, MYAC bought it in 2013.

A public forum that year indicated positive community support, Karen Dennis, Allan’s wife and MYAC’s administrative director recalled. But after revealing a prior seven-floor blueprint, the nonprofit undertook multiple feedback meetings and revisions between 2021 and 2024 to arrive at its current plan.

“I’m not going to say we have everything perfect,” Dennis said. “But we are willing to work with the city and do what we need to do to make it happen right and we certainly have adjusted to what’s being suggested by everybody.” 

“We’re not looking to accommodate much more,” Dennis continued. “We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars accommodating to this point. We need to start using our energies to raise the money and stop having to get through this step, which should be a slam dunk.”

To prevent traffic coming through Fort Sheridan, the redesigned MYAC campus will create a new access road directly off Sheridan Road, curb off Westover and Prall’s Loop roads, and put gates on Westover and Lyster roads along the Fine Arts Studio of Rotblatt-Amrany access road. 

MYAC estimated that 15,000-20,000 people visit its current campus every year. In the event all of its full-capacity shows in the new concert hall sell out, MYAC estimated that the new maximum total number of people visiting its campus every year would be 24,000.

The school has committed to only holding 30 half-capacity events and 18 full-capacity events a year and refrain from scheduling them on the same day as local festivals, of which Highwood has plenty.

MYAC also plans to contract Highwood police officers or parking attendants to assist with traffic flows before and after shows. 

Assuming cars arrive with an average of three people per vehicle, the campus’s 287 total parking spaces would exceed Highwood’s parking code requirements, Dennis said. 

An April 2024 traffic study, one of several commissioned by MYAC, ultimately concluded that the area’s “roadway system has sufficient reserve capacity to accommodate the traffic projected to be generated by the expanded campus.”

In terms of its appearance, the concert hall is sunk into the ground so its four-floor ceiling will match the height of MYAC’s nearby headquarters. The four-acre lot, which is technically outside of Fort Sheridan, can gain a boundary of trees to obscure it from view inside the fort, Dennis said. 

Dennis argued the venue could raise the value of nearby homes by creating a hub for performances from other schools and professional orchestras, and noted MYAC is waiting for Highwood City Council’s official approval to begin its five-year fundraising plan for the project estimated to cost between $29-40 million. MYAC won’t begin construction until it secures all of its funding.

‘We’re not going to stop’

Susan Lazar first moved to Fort Sheridan in 2022 and learned about the proposed concert hall last August. When Fort Sheridan’s Homeowners Association inquired if residents wanted to obtain more info about the project, she helped form Friends of Historic Fort Sheridan and was voted president.

In October, her email account crashed after receiving so many questions and concerns about MYAC’s plan, Lazar said. 

While Lazar affirmed she and other group members are strong supporters of music and education, she argued the community has other nearby concert halls and that a recent population surge in Highwood means another large venue with weekly late-night events would overwhelm local traffic and parking.

A former marketing research consultant, Lazar outlined five active residential real-estate developments, such as the Hotel Moraine high rise, that she estimated collectively stand to add 598 people and 498 cars to Highwood’s already dense population.

With approximately 5,400 people currently residing in Highwood’s 0.71 square miles, Lazar said she’s held focus groups and met with area business owners who are concerned traffic generated by MYAC concerts could make it difficult for people to easily access main street shops.

Likewise, Lazar noted Fort Sheridan boasts two nature preserves often busy on weekends when concerts would occur and expressed skepticism MYAC’s visitors wouldn’t still drive through the neighborhood, potentially leading to more noise, garbage, light pollution, security concerns and obstructions to local EMS access. 

The City of Highwood was drafting its comprehensive plan in 2013 when MYAC bought the lot near its headquarters, and the plan outlines the city will support improvement to the school’s facilities, “provided that improvements or expansions do not negatively impact residential neighborhoods.”

Lazar argued numerous other issues exist in MYAC’s proposal — like a lack of an environment study or outlined maintenance plan, unclear financial viability, the loss of potential Highwood tax revenue on a lot that could fit 15 homes, the look of a “huge” commercial venue outside a community of historic late-19th century buildings — that prove its risks far outweigh its proposed benefits.

Dennis said he intends to clear up misconceptions people may have about the concert hall at the upcoming June 18 commission meeting, which he hopes will provide penultimate approval to the development now 10-years in the making.

But Lazar and Mellen said they intend to continue organizing against MYAC’s development and are pleased with the amount of messaging they’ve distributed so far. 

On May 16, Lazar submitted a petition to the city that held 701 signatures in opposition to the venue. City staff later received more than 100 written public comments on May 21, and 64 of them repeated the concerns MYAC will put “undue stress” on the Highwood community and “should find another location.”

“We made a commitment that we’re in this until the end,” Mellen said. “There’s a process, we’re involved with this process wherever it ends and we’re not going to stop.”

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