The third time was the charm Thursday night as Evanston’s Environment Board was, after rescheduling twice, finally able to quiz Andrew San Roman, the city’s building and development services manager, on how Northwestern University was living up to its sustainability commitments for the Ryan Field demolition and reconstruction project.
In November 2023, the city and the university signed a Memorandum of Understanding that, among other things, required Northwestern to submit a sustainability plan for tearing down the old Ryan Field and building and operating the new stadium.
During the spring, several Environment Board members said they wanted to see how this plan was panning out in practice. City officials were originally supposed to go before the board in May, but that got pushed back twice due to scheduling conflicts.
During Thursday’s meeting, San Roman told the board that Northwestern recycled the old Ryan Field’s furnishings, utility infrastructure and materials that weren’t contaminated, and the university lived up to its commitment to use low-carbon materials in the construction of the new stadium. But he also mentioned that the new stadium will use natural gas, at least at first, noting that nothing in the MOU explicitly required the new Ryan Field to be all-electric.
The meeting also saw the Environment Board finalize a letter to consultants hired by the city for the Envision Evanston 2045 comprehensive plan and zoning code rewrite. The consultants presented preliminary findings to the City Council on June 24, and the board felt that they took the wrong approach to environmental issues. The report put sustainability and environmentalism in a separate section, and the board felt that, given how climate change and pollution impact every aspect of life, that should be something incorporated into all areas of planning and zoning.
Ryan Field update
San Roman said he couldn’t speak to the sustainability plan for the new stadium’s operations, since the MOU doesn’t require the university to submit one until six months before stadium opens – but he did discuss construction.
The Memorandum of Understanding committed Northwestern to deconstruction rather than demolition. In other words, the agreement mandated the university to salvage as much of the old building’s materials as possible for future reuse. San Roman said that, because Ryan Field was a “close-to-100-years-old stadium,” the university couldn’t reuse the materials, but it did recycle as much concrete, steel and non-ferrous metals as possible.
“Certain elements had to go to waste. Part of it is that they had lead paint on them,” he said. “That was sent to a special waste management plant.”
San Roman added that Northwestern worked with the Rebuilding Exchange to salvage light bulbs, ballasts, electrical panels, stadium seats, aluminum and copper.
“My understanding is they sold a lot of [seats],” he said.
Northwestern has so far lived up to the MOU requirement to use low-carbon steel and cement, according to San Roman.
Board member Jim Cahan asked about the university’s commitment to energy efficiency. San Roman said there will be natural gas pipes, noting that, while Evanston is mulling banning natural gas in new construction, it wasn’t approved at the time the demolition started. Changes in building and zoning regulations can’t be retroactive.
San Roman also noted that nothing in the MOU commits Northwestern to make the new Ryan Field fully electric. The agreement calls for the structure to be “either an all-electric net zero building or a pathway to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.” It calls for the university to “collaborate with ComEd on full building electrification, EV charging, and available incentives” and “conduct new feasibility study of solar PV or solar parking canopies.”
Board co-chair Matt Cotter asked how the city is holding Northwestern to its obligations. San Roman said that the university is required to submit a checklist of sustainability benchmarks and then show how it met them.
When asked how the Environment Board could keep up with the project’s progress, he pointed members to Northwestern’s project website and Evanston’s proposed projects page.
Cahan pressed San Roman on what he would like to see in terms of environmental sustainability.
“To be honest with you, my job is to enforce what the City Council approves, so my opinion doesn’t really matter,” he replied. “What matters is that they follow Memorandum of Understanding, and that’s what we can enforce.”
Envision Evanston letter
The letter was drafted by the CARP Implementation Task Force, an Environment Board subcommittee formed in 2019 to monitor the city’s progress in meeting goals outlined in the 2018 Climate Action and Resilience Plan.
During the June 24 City Council meeting, Environment Board member and task force chair Katarina Topalov argued that environmental justice measures needed to be included in every aspect of the Envision Evanston process, rather than confined to one category.
During its Wednesday meeting, the task force agreed with that sentiment, saying that the plan’s description that Evanston should “protect natural resources” wasn’t adequate. Subcommittee members insisted on addressing affordable housing, healthy living and transportation, among other goals, as critical aspects of a sustainable future for Evanstonians. They agreed that the effects of rising temperatures and increased precipitation are already impacting residents, and that “vulnerable communities” should receive equitable environmental mitigations.
The urgency of their mission came through several times throughout the task force meeting, as members worried whether their children, grandchildren and beyond would grow up in a “survivable world” as it “exceeds planetary boundaries.” They summarized their position in a five-page letter that went to the Environment Board for final approval on Thursday.
To help illustrate their case, Environment Board and CARP Task Force member Paula Scholl created a graphic, which she shared with the rest of the board and the media during Thursday’s meeting. The graphic offered some examples of how environmental justice could impact other areas. For example, in the “creating healthy communities” category, it showed fully electrified homes, measures to mitigate the effects of flooding and higher temperatures, equitable access to water and making sure all parts of Evanston have green spaces.
Scholl said that the copy of the letter shared with the board inadvertently omitted ensuring enough housing for “climate refugees” – something that the board agreed to add to the copy of the letter that will be sent to Envision Evanston consultants.
Scholl also said that the task force wants the consultants to draw on previous Evanston environment-related plans, including CARP, existing city resolutions and data from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning 2050 forecasts and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration state-level climate summaries.
After some discussion, the board agreed to submit the letter, along with a version of Scholl’s diagram as an appendix, since members thought it was a good visual aid.
The board previously canceled its August meeting, usually an off month for Evanston boards, committees and commissions. But members agreed to add the meeting back to the schedule to allow for a discussion with the Envision Evanston consultants. Cara Pratt, the city’s sustainability and resilience manager, said that August was the only time the meeting could happen, and the board agreed it didn’t want to delay.
Next month’s meeting was originally scheduled for Aug. 8. But because the board wasn’t sure whether they would be able to meet quorum requirements on that day, they set it for “August 7 or 8,” just in case the former works better for most members.
RoundTable intern Ann Vettikkal contributed to this report.
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