After months of tense meetings and hallway debates, Lisle trustees voted unanimously on April 6 to approve a major rebuild of Benet Academy’s Baumgartner-Gilbert Stadium, wrapping up a months-long review that split the village between school supporters and nearby homeowners. The ordinance clears the way for new turf, a rebuilt home grandstand and stadium lighting, with trustees layering on design tweaks and operating limits meant to tamp down noise, light, and traffic near the Oak Hill South neighborhood. The vote followed more than six public hearings and months of negotiation.
What the trustees approved
The plan signed off on by the board allows Benet to install two synthetic turf fields, a new track, a 1,400-seat home grandstand with a press box, visitor bleachers, two scoreboards, and stadium lighting. Several features were scaled back from earlier designs, including a reduced scoreboard and a smaller home grandstand, after neighbors pressed for concessions, as reported by the Daily Herald.
Neighbors say noise, lights and values are at risk
Nearby residents warned trustees that the rebuilt stadium would make their quiet streets brighter and louder and could drag down home values. "Soundproofing a house would cost at least $60,000," Oak Hill South resident Dina Elgowainy told village officials, and neighbor James Mercer cautioned that the stadium "will be louder and brighter and may be rented out widely," according to the Chicago Tribune.
Limits, monitoring and parking concessions
The ordinance is backed by an eight-page conditions exhibit that caps the use of night lighting at 54 days per year, broken down as 17 practices, 31 non-football events and up to six football games. The conditions also ban stadium lights on Sundays and during specified blackout months, and they require a sound-monitoring program with numeric thresholds and public reporting. The village further required enhanced landscaping buffers, an eight-foot fence along the west property line, tight limits on light spill and a privately negotiated overflow-parking agreement with Benedictine University, according to the Village of Lisle.
Benet shrank the plan and set a timeline
Benet representatives told trustees the school had already trimmed back its vision to respond to neighborhood concerns, moving the stadium roughly 15 feet east, removing an alumni plaza and cutting the home-side seating in earlier proposals down to 1,400 seats. The school says it hopes to begin construction this summer and target the 2027 season for on-campus games, and Benet President Bill Myers called the vote a milestone for the campus, according to Benet Academy.
Enforcement and what comes next
Any future increase in permanent west-side seating would trigger a major change to Benet’s planned-unit development, which means another round of village review. Staff said they will review monitoring data and can require third-party verification to confirm that the school is following the rules. Officials have described the approval as the product of a long compromise after multiple planning-commission hearings, and residents say they intend to watch enforcement closely, as reported by Shaw Local.
