By Bob Seidenberg
The Evanston City Council officially tied the knot Monday on a 40-year lease with the Celadon Construction Corporation, approving the company’s plans to convert the Harley Clarke mansion into a lakeside wedding and event venue, with the capacity to host as many as 150 weddings and other gatherings per year.
Councilmembers voted 7-1 in favor of a $1-a-year lease with Celadon on the building at 2603 Sheridan Rd., which has essentially sat shuttered since 2015.
First Ward Councilmember Clare Kelly, the lone vote against the proposal, said she supported the project but that it needed more time to refine the details and ensure continued public use of the property around the mansion.
Her motion to hold off action, however, failed for lack of a second.
Community members had raised concerns at previous meetings about access to the popular fire ring that sits outside the mansion.
Under the long-term lease approved by the council, reservations for the fire ring system will be managed by the city.
Celadon will be allowed to make reservations for up to 25% of each season’s usage of the fire ring, including up to 25% on weekends. The city’s Parks and Recreation Department will also be allowed 25%, including weekends.
“The remaining 50% of the usage will be open to the public as it is now,” Alexandra Ruggie, the city’s corporation counsel, wrote in a memo.
In discussion, Kelly raised concerns that the agreement would still allow Celadon to take the most desired weekends from April to October. She asked for a delay in the vote to allow officials to further clarify some of the details.
“I’m just really concerned that we have this really special place for Evanstonians open during the months when they would be most likely to want to access the fire pit,” she said.
A provision in the agreement calls for the usage question to be revisited every three years, Ruggie noted.
“Because it will take some time before construction on the building is done for it to open, only one season is expected to be affected,” she said. “And so after that one season, we will revisit this and work together to amend it as needed for either party.”
Kelly added, “I just want to preface this with I’m very excited about preserving the building, the preservation that would happen with this.”
Councilmembers had voted for officials to negotiate a lease with Celadon last October based on the company’s response to the city’s request for proposals, seeking a user for the site.
The city returned to square one on finding a tenant for the building, constructed in 1926, after the previous tenant, Artists Book House, pulled out of a similar lease to convert the mansion into a book and literary center.
Celadon won out over a number of groups vying to use the building, including the locally-based Evanston Community Lakehouse and Gardens, which had proposed much more open community use.
Based in Wilmette, Celadon is a developer specializing in the adaptive reuse of larger historic buildings, taking advantage of federal and state tax credits for repurposing landmarks while preserving their structure.
With financial viability a high priority after Artists Book House had struggled to meet fundraising benchmarks set by the city for the building, which needs significant repairs, the council ultimately chose Celadon.
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