City to seek landmark status for a neo-Gothic hall on the DePaul University campus

A 96-year-old Collegiate Gothic building on the DePaul University campus is being considered Thursday for preliminary landmark status.

The city's landmarks commission will decide whether to grant the designation to Cortelyou Commons, 2324 N. Fremont St., a dining hall and event space completed in 1930.

If approved, the building's exterior would have preliminary landmark protection until a measure for a permanent designation is put before and approved by the City Council.

The city seeks landmark status for the building two months after the aldermen gave DePaul permission raze to four 1890s rowhouses and a 1925 apartment house to build a $60 million basketball and athletics center on the 2300 block of North Sheffield Avenue.

A beautiful quintet if there ever was one, the buildings are listed as contributing structures to the Sheffield Avenue National Register Historic District.

Cortelyou Commons, located about three blocks west of the Sheffield Avenue site, is not under threat of demolition. But DePaul area residents and preservationists who were concerned about the loss of the buildings pushed to get the commons landmarked.

Preservation Chicago Executive Director Ward Miller said landmark designation for Cortelyou Commons would be "wonderful," but he added "the loss of the five historic structures will further diminish the character of Sheffield Avenue."

Designed by Dwight G. Wallace and built as a dining hall for its original owner, McCormick Theological Seminary, Cortelyou Commons resembles a slice of Oxford — or the University of Chicago — transplanted to Lincoln Park.

The two-and-a-half story limestone building is a robust-looking structure complete with buttresses, detailed oriel windows and abundant stone tracery.

Collegiate Gothic was a popular architectural style for colleges and universities worldwide from the late 1800s to almost 1940. A revivalist offshoot of Gothic architecture, the designs could convey substance and tradition. The commons' cornerstone was lain in 1929.

The commons is the only surviving building from a 1920s master plan created when the McCormick seminary campus was DePaul's western neighbor.

At the time, McCormick envisioned Wallace designing 14 new Collegiate Gothic buildings that would together transform the seminary, according to the Chicago Department of Planning's preliminary designation report on Cortelyou Commons.

The aim was to create "a unified and dignified campus," the report said.

But the plan went bust and only the commons and the Hayes-Healy Athletics Center, 940 W. Belden Ave., were built. The athletics center was demolished in 2005 for the CTA's Fullerton Station expansion.

DePaul acquired the common's building and the rest of McCormick's campus when the seminary was sold-off and moved to Hyde Park in 1976.

Still, the commons building is a fine remnant of McCormick's vision. The main dining hall is an out-and-out stunner with its detailed exposed wood hammer beam trusses, paneled walls and ranks of neo-Gothic windows.

A DePaul spokesperson said the university supports the landmark designation.

"DePaul is committed to preservation in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, while at the same time investing in our future," the spokesperson said. "The university signaled our support for these efforts during community meetings and the approval process for the new athletics practice facility."

And the Department of Planning said the city plans to seek preliminary landmark status this year for an additional DePaul building, Peter Byrne Hall, 2219 N. Kenmore Ave., built in 1907.