By Mallory Mankin, Staff Writer
Last month, College Church demolished seven houses on East Seminary Avenue to make way for a new parking lot. The church intends the space to be used by members of its congregation who have disabilities, as other lots are not as accessible.
Although the demolition, which began on March 2, was approved by the city, many neighbors protested the action. The new parking lot has yet to be authorized for construction.
Nancy Singer, the director of administration and finance for College Church, said the houses were purchased with the intention of adding parking space on the same side of the street as the main sanctuary. The expansion is intended to support the church’s disability ministry, which the church reports as currently serving 140 families.
The STARS (Seeking To Always Reflect the Savior) disability ministry offers many classes and outreach programs to help congregants with intellectual or sensory disabilities to worship with the church. This includes, but is not limited to, a worship ministry, job skills coaching and group homes. Other accessibility services offered by the church include parking recommendations for those with mobility disabilities.
Aiden Stafford, a senior Bible and theology major, got married at College Church and has been engaged with the church over the years. He commented that the church is large and does not have enough space to accommodate all the cars that want to park on Sundays, as well as other special events like his wedding.
“Sundays are just one day of a church’s function,” he said. “What about weekday events where they have a large attendance?”
Stafford said he knows a church congregant who experiences mobility issues and needs to be dropped off and helped to get inside the church, as “parking is so hard.”
On College Church’s website, they highlight on a digital map accessible parking spots which are located on the north end of their Commons parking lot.
The church currently has 281 parking spaces across three lots, but only 18 of them comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The church has also negotiated with the Wheaton Public Library to use their lot on Sunday mornings. Wheaton College also offers approximately 100 parking spaces to be used by church congregants at the Billy Graham Center, Blanchard Hall and Edman Chapel.
A proposal for the new lot was submitted to the Planning and Zoning Board of the City of Wheaton to be heard in committee on Aug. 26, 2025. This plan featured a detailed look at how many parking spaces they would aim to provide — 116 spaces, 12 of which are ADA-compliant. The document also included a request to rezone the house lots from residential to industrial, which would allow them to build a parking lot on the land.
In rezoning the lots, Article 22.3.3 of the Wheaton Zoning Ordinance would come into question. This 1989 regulation prohibits a parking area from being directly adjacent to a single-family use house. Instead, the properties would need to be separated by 50 feet.
The regulation came after College Church’s prior attempts to expand into the neighborhood, as well as those of Wheaton Bible when they were located in downtown Wheaton. The latter has since moved to West Chicago. The properties are across the street from the sanctuary, which includes classrooms, a large hall for fellowship and a regulation-sized basketball court.
Norm Ewert, a retired associate professor of economics at the college, and his family have poured significant resources into the remodeling of their home, which was first built in 1857. They expanded the house to include a garage, an upstairs floor, and a large dining room for entertaining guests. The Ewerts are still well known on campus for hosting an open dinner for Wheaton College students at their home each Thursday night.
Alongside some neighbors, Ewert formed the “Union Corridor Neighborhood,” which pushed back against many institutions that were attempting to move into residential areas, including College Church, Wheaton Bible Church, the public library and Gary Wheaton Bank — now Chase Bank. They first met with the two churches to hear out their plans and state their case. Afterward, they petitioned the city and desired a solution to mitigate the effects of “institutional encroachment.”
“They were all aiming at my house,” Ewert said.
In response, the city changed the zoning law to include the 50-foot ordinance previously mentioned, which was brought back into question with College Church’s proposal for a new parking lot.
College Church, in its proposal heard by the committee in August, asked for a special variance to be excused from the regulation. In this way, they could carry out their plan to have 7.2 feet on the north property line and 5 feet on the south and west property lines between their parking lot and the residential zone.
This would be an 85% reduction on the north side and a 70% on the south and west between the industrial zoned parking lot and the residential zoned houses.
According to their September 2025 magazine issue of “Connections,” College Church withdrew their initial proposal “for now” as the city needed more convincing before they were willing to change the zoning and approve the variances needed.
After Christmas, Ewert and half a dozen other neighbors were invited by College Church to review their plans and discuss their concerns. The neighbors wanted to keep the 50-foot requirement and the preexisting zoning. Ewert noted that he did not recognize any of the church leadership.
“ I didn’t recognize any of the people that met with us as having been part of the conversations back 35 years ago,” Ewert said.
A building permit was issued by the Building and Code Enforcement Department of the city of Wheaton on Feb. 26, 2026, approving the demolition of the seven houses and the intention to “restore area to grass,” with the “future use of this site is unknown at this time.”
College Church is working with the city to obtain a permit for the parking lot. According to Nancy Singer, “exactly what that will look like or how many spaces have yet to be determined.” A plan for the parking lot will need to be approved by the city before construction begins, for as of now, the lot only has permission to revert to a grassy field.
Residents of Union Avenue are not happy. Some have put up yard signs that say “Save our neighborhood!! No parking lot!!”
One member of the neighborhood, Lieah Dodge, lives on East Union Avenue and remarked that College Church congregants parking in the residential streets does not bother her, as it is only for “two hours a week.” She questioned the church’s need for a new lot as she has observed that the library lot is not always full on Sunday mornings.
Her neighbor Kerry Mansour, a local teacher in the area, commented on the nature of a residential area and how it does not have much parking by design, including for local schools and businesses.
“We’d all love to have lots of parking,” Mansour said. “We want to keep the neighborhood as a neighborhood.”
