NU stadium foes will take zoning lawsuit to appeals court

(Editor’s Note: This story was reported by Alex Harrison for the Evanston RoundTable, a neighboring independent newsroom. It was shared with The Record as part of an ongoing collaborative effort.)

Nearly two years after Evanston’s City Council voted to allow six public concerts per year at Northwestern University’s rebuilt Ryan Field football stadium, the opposition group suing to reverse that approval is escalating its case to the Illinois Appellate Court.

The lawsuit against the city, brought by a group of stadium neighbors and the Most Livable City Association, was first filed in November 2023 with four counts: one arguing the concert approval violated due process, and three arguing in various ways that the 5-4 approval vote failed to meet the city’s supermajority requirements.

The court dismissed the three voting claims as legally insufficient in April 2024, and later denied the plaintiffs’ request to re-plead them on Aug. 12.

With all options exhausted at the circuit level, the plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal on Oct. 24 to send the three voting claims up to the appellate court for review. They’ll be represented before the higher court by local attorney Jeff Smith, who also serves as president of the Central Street Neighbors Association.

Andy Berman, MLCA’s current president and a retired attorney, said the appeal is seeking a legal determination on “some questions of relatively unsettled law” concerning the voting claims. He said the case still has a long road ahead before it is finally resolved, as it could take around a year for the appellate court to deliver a ruling, after which he expects the losing party will request further review by the Illinois Supreme Court.

“[The lawsuit] sort of goes into suspended animation, from the standpoint of the people that are interested in it,” Berman said. “Justice moves slowly.”

Because of that slow speed, the plaintiffs decided to voluntarily dismiss its remaining claims in the original circuit court case, including the due process claim and three others added in May 2024 alleging the concert approval was “illegal contract zoning” and will cause both public and private nuisances. This was done without prejudice, meaning the lawsuit can be refiled in the future after the appeal is finished, with Berman saying a withdrawal made the most sense “financially and for judicial resources.”

Spokespeople for the city and Northwestern, which has intervened in the case as a defendant, did not respond to requests for comment.

No briefing schedule has been set for the appeal yet as of Thursday morning. Construction on the new Ryan Field is scheduled to end by September 2026, and the first concerts at the stadium could be held in 2027.

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