St. Viator High School has applied to build a large-scale athletic complex — including a 1,500-seat grandstand, practice fields, 8-lane track, permanent lighting, 8 tennis courts, and limited additional parking — directly bordering established residential neighborhoods in Arlington Heights. The proposal is under active Village review, and further public hearings are still to come. The time to act is now.
Competition and practice fields for football, soccer, and lacrosse; an 8-lane all-weather track; 8 tennis courts; home and visitor grandstands; permanent stadium lighting; concessions; restrooms; and expanded on-site parking.
St. Viator's current plans call for a 1,500-seat grandstand, plus practice fields and an 8-lane track supporting near year-round activity. This is not a routine field upgrade — it is a large-scale athletic complex requiring multiple zoning variances, situated directly adjacent to residential neighborhoods.
St. Viator's administration noted at their December 2025 open house that fewer than 25% of current students are local to Arlington Heights. The majority travel from as far as Chicago — meaning most users have no investment in our community streets or neighborhood safety.
St. Viator is a private high school — it does not contribute to the local tax base, and unlike public institutions, it is not subject to the same degree of public accountability to Arlington Heights residents. The community bears the burden of this project with no financial contribution from the school and no formal mechanism to hold it accountable.
Current St. Viator activity already generates overflow street parking on Oakton and Dryden, noise from daily practices and meets (incl. private teams and other schools that also use the existing site), and safety hazards from unmanaged student and visitor traffic — with no meaningful enforcement by school administrators. St. Viator's own admission is that they "tell coaches to keep it down," yet noise violations continue — with no enforcement mechanism. This pattern directly undermines the credibility of future operational commitments.
The Special Use application was filed January 22, 2026. No variances have been approved. The Village is in active review. Once the plans have reached their “final draft” stage, a hearing date will be scheduled and the plans will then be FOIABLE. St. Viator's stated construction timeline is their own assumption — not a Village confirmation.
The scale of this project means near year-round, daily activity — football, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, and track practices, plus games, tournaments, and marching band events. This is not 5 night games a year. Large crowds, stadium noise, and light pollution will permanently alter the character of the surrounding neighborhoods. Arlington Heights residents chose these communities specifically for their quiet, residential character.
Oakton and Dryden are already extremely busy during peak school hours — incl. speeding on quiet residential cut-through streets. A 1,500-person stadium will multiply the volume, duration, and unpredictability of that traffic. Opposing teams, unfamiliar visitors, and crowds who don't know Arlington Heights will cut through neighborhoods, park in front of homes, and turn around in driveways. Plans cannot account for people who ignore the rules.
St. Viator's overflow parking plan has changed, and the details are not yet publicly available. St. Viator's original plans, reviewed by the Village, identified an off-site lot at St. James Church with a shuttle bus to the stadium. At the October 5 Village Board meeting, the overflow sites mentioned were a Clerics of St. Viator property south of the high school and St. Alphonsus in Prospect Heights, about 3 miles away. Until a formal update is published, the plan remains unclear. Whatever the final plan, these gaps matter:
Off-site parking models only work if strictly enforced — and Arlington Heights residents have not seen that enforcement from this school.
St. Viator already uses their current facilities for events beyond school activities. More tellingly, St. Viator's own website describes their new athletic complex as a "hub of Catholic education" that will "also welcome Catholic elementary and middle schools from across the region." This is not a facility designed solely for St. Viator students — it is a regional destination intentionally marketed to outside organizations.
St. Viator's published plans are silent on whether — or how frequently — they intend to rent this facility to outside groups, summer camps, leagues, or other organizations. St. Viator has not committed to banning facility rentals. If the school rents the fields to outside groups, even occasionally, parking demand spikes dramatically with no planning for it. A facility designed for school use might host 300 people; a rental tournament could bring 1,500+. The parking deficit becomes catastrophic. The community has no enforcement mechanism and the school bears no financial penalty for impacts on surrounding neighborhoods.
Neighbors can already hear the distant noise of Prospect and Hersey on game nights. Now put that same level of noise — high-volume speakers, PA systems, crowds, and music — at the center of our neighborhoods. Even today, music from St. Viator practices carries throughout the neighborhood despite school administrators claiming they tell coaches to keep it down. Permanent stadium lighting adjacent to homes will affect sleep, health, and daily quality of life for residents of all ages.
The school's plan includes commitments on lighting, sound, traffic, and landscaping — but these are unilateral promises, not binding Village conditions. St. Viator committed to "blackout" lighting on home football Fridays, but what about Saturday tournaments? Soccer in spring? Tennis year-round? Once built, enforcement falls to the same institution that currently tells coaches "keep it down" while doing nothing to stop noise violations. "Best case scenario" assurances will not hold on a busy Friday night game or a regional tournament weekend.
A stadium-adjacent address — with regular large crowds, nighttime events, and ongoing noise — creates real risk of reduced property values and buyer hesitation. And once approved, future expansions or increased permitted hours become far more likely, further eroding residents' ability to protect their community.
Arlington Heights is a community people move to with intention. Quiet cul-de-sacs. Kids riding bikes after school. Families gathering at parks on summer evenings. Neighbors who know each other's names and look out for each other.
The neighborhoods surrounding St. Viator are filled with that kind of life — families with young children, longtime residents who've built community here for decades, and newcomers who chose Arlington Heights for exactly what it is: a place where you can plant roots and feel safe.
That is what is at stake. Not just noise levels and traffic studies. The lived experience of a community that works — and the very real risk of permanently altering it for the benefit of a private high school that contributes nothing financially to the city it wants to transform.
"Friday driveway happy hours, meetups at Carriage Walk Park, fire pits and s'mores, pickup hockey in the cul-de-sac, riding bikes, and playing Ghost in the Graveyard at dusk. I want to continue raising my children in that neighborhood — where I feel safe with kids just being kids."
— Arlington Heights resident, letter to the Plan CommissionThe impacts of a project this size reach far beyond the streets immediately surrounding St. Viator. Here's what residents across Arlington Heights should know.
Residents on the streets directly bordering the school will face daily and nightly impacts from year-round practices, games, stadium lighting, PA systems, overflow parking, and significantly increased traffic on streets that are already strained.
While Dryden and Oakton border the school directly, residents along these streets and their cross-streets who are not immediately adjacent should still expect increased daily commuter traffic, game-night surges, parking overflow, and real impacts on key intersections during peak hours. Expect to allow more time to traverse Dryden, Oakton, and other parallel streets like Olive and Euclid during peak hours.
Euclid and Arlington Heights Road serve as key connectors between the school, St. James Church, and surrounding neighborhoods. Increased cut-through traffic from visitors unfamiliar with Arlington Heights streets — heading to and from games and events — will push onto these corridors and their feeder streets, which are single-lane residential roads with minimal stop signs and no traffic lights.
St. Viator's own website describes this complex as a "hub of Catholic education" that will "welcome Catholic elementary and middle schools from across the region." This is not a school facility built for local students — it is a regional athletic destination that will bring non-residents into Arlington Heights streets regularly without any revenue flowing back to the community.
St. Viator's own language makes clear this complex is intended to serve a regional audience well beyond their student body. That raises real questions about the frequency and volume of use — and whether a privately operated facility that does not pay any local taxes could eventually be monetized through rentals or outside events, bringing even more outside traffic with no financial benefit to the community that absorbs it.
St. Viator's original plans, reviewed by the Village, identified St. James Catholic Church (1305 N Arlington Heights Rd), 7–8 blocks away, as an overflow site, with a shuttle bus to the stadium. At the October 5 Village Board meeting, St. Viator's overflow parking had changed to include Prospect Heights, about 3 miles from the school, and no longer St. James. The overflow sites mentioned at that meeting were a Clerics of St. Viator property south of the high school and St. Alphonsus in Prospect Heights.
No formal update has been made publicly available, so the exact overflow plan, including whether St. James and/or St. Alphonsus will be used, remains unknown. Residents should watch for the following:
Ask the Village Planning Department for the formal, binding overflow plan before the next hearing.
St. Viator's website makes several claims that deserve scrutiny. Here are the facts — many drawn directly from the Village's own planning process and the firsthand experience of residents who live adjacent to the school.
"Daily school-day parking demand already fits within existing capacity."
What St. Viator omits: students routinely choose to park on Oakton and Dryden rather than use the on-site lot — not because the lot is full, but because street parking is more convenient than waiting in lot traffic. The lot having available spaces does not mean the streets aren't already overwhelmed. A stadium-scale event will make this exponentially worse.
"Fewer teen driver trips mean less cut-through congestion."
This claim only addresses daytime school commutes. It ignores that events, games, and tournaments generate evening and weekend traffic — when residential streets are most active with children, families, and pedestrians. Trading daytime congestion for nighttime congestion in a residential neighborhood is not an improvement.
"Providing proactive community notifications ahead of large gatherings such as Grandparents' Mass."
Neighbors were not notified ahead of Grandparents' Mass or other large gatherings. This claim is directly contradicted by the firsthand experience of residents who live immediately adjacent to the school. There is no established notification system, and no demonstrated history of proactive outreach to the surrounding community.
"Although not required, the school hosted a neighborhood open house on December 3, 2025."
A neighborhood open house is a standard requirement of the Village of Arlington Heights' planning process for projects of this type. Framing it as optional misrepresents the process and overstates the school's commitment to community engagement.
Reminder that no approvals have been granted. St. Viator's stated construction timeline is their own assumption — not a Village determination.
Saint Viator officially opened its doors on September 5, 1961, at Oakton and Dryden Streets. Neighbors who lived here before the school's first special use permit describe a small school that worked closely with its neighbors. Homes on Dryden Avenue were built in the 1950s, and Carriage Walk formed in the 1980s. Neighbors were given keys to the tennis courts. Each expansion since then has added to the burden on the surrounding streets: louder fans, more car and garbage-truck traffic, blocked sunlight, and baseball nets built about 30 feet from homes.
For St. Viator to proceed, the Village must approve significant zoning variances. Arlington Heights' own ordinance establishes specific criteria each variance must satisfy. Residents believe this project fails to meet them.
Everything about this project alters the essential character of the locality. The surrounding area is 100% residential. A 1,500-seat stadium complex with year-round athletic activity is incompatible with residential zoning by any reasonable interpretation.
Increased traffic volume, noise, vibration, and light pollution directly adjacent to a residential community is, by definition, detrimental to the health, safety, and general welfare of residents. The current traffic conditions around the school are already a documented public safety concern.
A fenced-off sports complex serving a private high school that does not contribute to the local tax base provides no public benefit. Not a single St. Viator representative at their open house could identify one public benefit of this project when asked directly by neighbors. Arlington Heights residents shoulder the impacts of increased traffic, noise, light pollution, and parking overflow on their streets and in their neighborhoods, while reaping no benefit and having no formal mechanism to hold the school accountable. That is not public convenience — that is a private benefit subsidized by the community.
The property is already in active, reasonable use — outdoor sports teams currently practice there and baseball and softball host games. Approving a full stadium complex as a PUD in the heart of a residential community is far from the minimum variance necessary for reasonable use.
Hersey is a public school, so the people who live with its lights and noise are the people who benefit from them. Saint Viator is a private school, and its plan would bring stadium-scale use to a site smaller than every other D214 campus.
When Hersey hosts a Friday night game, the neighbors who live with the lights and noise are part of the community that school serves. Their children can attend it, their taxes fund it, and they elect the board that runs it. The burden and the benefit land on the same people, and those people have a vote.
Saint Viator is a different kind of institution. It is a private, tuition-based school, and at the October 5 Village Board meeting and its December community open house, the school confirmed that only about 25–30% of its students live in Arlington Heights. Its own website describes the new complex as a place that will "welcome Catholic elementary and middle schools across the region" and reinforce "our role as a hub of Catholic education." The regional draw benefits families who live elsewhere. The burden stays here.
The land is what makes that burden hard to absorb. The other D214 campuses sit on total sites of about 34 to 47 acres. Hersey, the D214 high school in Arlington Heights, is about 39.5 acres. Saint Viator's total site is about 20.6 acres after its proposed split from the Clerics' property, which was about 39 acres before the split. Hersey and Forest View Educational Center are both zoned R-1 (Village of Arlington Heights zoning map). Saint Viator's site is zoned R-3, which allows smaller minimum lots: 8,750 square feet, compared with 15,000 square feet under R-1 (Chapter 28, Sections 5.1-3.1 and 5.1-1.1). Buyers in a residential neighborhood reasonably expect the special use review that governs schools to protect them from high-intensity facilities. A 1,500-seat stadium with lights and video boards is the kind of use that review exists to limit.
A campus this size cannot absorb the intensity of use this plan describes. The footprint is the footprint. Renting is part of the same problem. The Village staff memo dated September 29, 2026 reports that the school has no current contracts to rent the new facilities, but that "the Petitioner has not committed to refraining from signing rental contracts in the future." A facility built for 1,500 spectators would be attractive to outside groups, and neighbors would have no say in those events.
We aren't asking the Village to treat Saint Viator worse than any other school. We're asking it to recognize that when a use's benefits leave the neighborhood and its burdens stay behind, the "not detrimental to the vicinity" standard has to be applied with full force.
We bought here for the neighborhood.
It's quiet streets with lots of young families, close to playgrounds and green space. Carriage Walk Park is a beautiful part of our neighborhood, and our kids are there constantly, playing with the other neighborhood kids most evenings in the warmer months.
Yes, we knew we were buying next to a school.
But living next to a school is not the same as living next to a walled, lit stadium with video scoreboards. This fundamentally changes the character of this corridor. Living next to a school and living next to a stadium complex with no public benefit are two entirely different decisions when buying a house.
We want Saint Viator to thrive. We would welcome renovated fields and better stewardship of the 20 acres the school already has. What we can't support is a stadium on a site this size.
No. Many of us played sports when we were younger or coach our children's teams today. We completely understand the strong positive influence sports can have on student athletes. We love seeing all the teams out there, and our kids enjoy watching the students practice and play.
We're opposed to the scale and location of this proposal, not to students or school sports. A 1,500-seat stadium with stadium lights, video scoreboards, and sound systems, built next to single-family homes, is a different thing from a high school team playing on a field.
Absolutely not.
St. Viator has been part of Arlington Heights for decades. It provides school choice for local and non-local residents and has produced outstanding graduates - some of whom stay in our town after graduation. Many of us in the neighborhood either attended, sent our children to attend, or have friends who have attended the school. We have supported many projects over the years to grow and improve the school; however, we believe the proposed sports complex is too much.
It isn't just five games a year. The school's own published 2025–2026 home athletics schedule lists roughly 119 home events.
That count doesn't include everything that would happen at the site. The schedule does not account for:
Promotional events draw the largest crowds. At the 2025 varsity homecoming football game, which was held at another location, the school estimated 1,200 to 1,400 attendees and counted 565 vehicles (Village staff memo, September 29, 2026). A stadium here would bring crowds like that to this neighborhood.
The count also includes events marked cancelled, which the schedule assumes would have gone ahead. It assumes four boys' track meets and three girls' track meets are hosted at Saint Viator, placed on adjacent dates to avoid conflicts.
Adding your name to our opposition petition is one of the most impactful things you can do. Village officials pay attention to the number of signatures — every name matters.
A pre-drafted opposition letter is ready for you below — addressed directly to the Arlington Heights Plan Commission and Village Board. Personalize it with your name, address, and your own connection to Arlington Heights before sending.
Watch the Village project page for the next scheduled Plan Commission or Village Board date. Village Hall is at 33 S. Arlington Heights Rd, 3rd floor Board Room, and parking is available in the garage off Sigwalt St. Your presence and voice matter enormously.
Display your opposition visibly. Signs have already been stolen once — we're keeping them going. Email to purchase one for your home.
Email mefet@aol.com →Share this site with neighbors and in community groups. Many Arlington Heights residents don't yet know what's being proposed.
Share This Page →Stay up to date with the latest news, discussions, and coordination among neighbors. Our private Facebook group is the hub for day-to-day updates.
Join the Group →Join our email list to get updates as the hearing process unfolds. You can also use this form to request a yard sign or ask a question — we'll get back to you directly.
Fill Out the Interest Form →
Community Impact AH does not comment on social media posts, threads, or comments made by individuals or other groups. Our official updates are published on this website. For the latest on the project, please check the Village project page and this site.