Parish Center - Our Lady of the Wayside Church

From Convent to Clearbrook to Parish Center and Pre-school
One of the most visible benefits of OLW’s Millennium Campaign is the
renovation and rebirth of the former convent into a new Parish Center and Preschool.
Built in 1955 and expanded in 1958, the convent has had two separate
careers in its 47-year life. This autumn, is has begun a third. As it has in the past,
it is once again serving the parish community, and once again it is playing an
instrumental role in the spiritual development and education of Wayside
parishioners.
This building has had an interesting history, as has our Parish.
The four Dominican sisters who provided the first Catholic education at Our
Lady of the Wayside actually lived in a temporary convent on the top floor of the
south wing of the OLW elementary school. They took up residence in August, 1954.
A few weeks later, on September 10, 1954, Our Lady of the Wayside School opened
with 300 students in seven classrooms.
It was a year later, in October, 1955, when ground was broken for the new,
permanent convent. Enrollment in the school was nearing 1,000 students at the
time and it was certain that more nuns would be needed to teach the children. Less
than three years later, construction on an addition to the convent began as 14
Dominican sisters were now in residence.
But membership in religious orders was declining, and the Dominican sisters
who staffed Wayside were getting fewer in number and no longer in need of the
convent.
Thus in February, 1973, OLW Parish leased the convent building to the
Clearbrook Center, a Rolling Meadows-based agency that serves and supports
people with developmental disabilities. Clearbrook intended to use the facility as a
residential setting for adults.
For more than 27 years, Clearbrook Center was a good neighbor and a good
tenant for Our Lady of the Wayside. But early in 2000, Clearbrook notified the parish
that it planned to move its adult residents to smaller, less-institutionalized housing
units in the area and that it would be leaving the convent property when its lease
expired in June, 2001.
Father Vince Costello, OLW pastor, appointed associate pastor Father Justin
Kusibab to chair a committee of parishioners to determine potential uses of the
convent following the Clearbrook departure. The Convent Committee began meeting
in March, 2000, shortly after the notice from Clearbrook.
The committee explored numerous possibilities for the convent facility,
including locating a new tenant, leasing the space for commercial use, using the
building for parish use or tearing down the building.
At the same time, the Parish Management Council considered the financial
impact of the loss of Clearbrook revenue.
The convent committee determined early in its deliberations that it would be
difficult to find an outside tenant that would be as compatible with Our Lady of
the Wayside Parish as Clearbrook Center has been. Situated in such close
proximity to the elementary school, and adjacent to the parking lot and school
playground, any new convent tenant had to be almost invisible, at least during
school hours. Clearbrook Center met that requirement because the vans that
took Clearbrook residents to their daily jobs and other activities were not in use
during pre-school or after-school hours.
While the committee explored these various possibilities for the use of the
convent, a review was conducted of the many parish ministries and activities,
including the parish school, to determine if there were parish needs that could be
met by the space in the convent.
It became clear very quickly that many, if not most, of the parish ministries
needed additional space. The number of activities and ministries in the parish
has grown in recent years – more than 70 ministries with more than 600 parish
families involved. Some activities were being held off campus because there was
no room for them. Other activities, meetings or programs have been held in
classrooms after hours because there is no other space. This was not a good
situation for the teachers or students, who need the best educational
environment possible.
The school itself, while not overcrowded, needed additional space for preschool
classrooms. Demand for pre-school services from Wayside parishioners
has increased steadily during the past few years, resulting in some parishioners
being denied the opportunity to enroll their children in the parish school. The
addition of two pre-school class rooms would solve that problem, while at the
same time, it would free-up other space in the school to accommodate the preschoolers
as they move into kindergarten and the elementary grades.
Two other parish needs that could be met in a renovated convent were more
storage space for the many items that are used periodically or seasonally (and
which require room for storage), and space to relieve the overcrowded office
area in the rectory. The rectory was originally built as a home for our parish
priests and included offices for a minimal staff. It had become overcrowded and
inefficient.

After weighing the recommendation of the Convent Committee that the building
be converted for parish use, and analyzing the costs of various options, including
tearing the building down, Father Costello agreed with the recommendation and the
decision was made to move forward with renovation.
The decision to renovate the convent building was made almost simultaneously
with the launch of OLW’s Millennium Campaign. In fact, funding of the renovation
became the central project of the Millennium Campaign which began in early 2001
and concluded – successfully – with a celebration of an outdoor Mass attended by
more than 1,200 parishioners who worshipped together, and then partied together.
Actual construction work on the convent building began in late fall of 2001 and
early 2002 and, with a target of opening day for the 2002-2003 school year,
construction was completed on time and parish offices were moved in at about the
same time that dozens of three and four-year-old pre-schoolers began a new year in
sparkling new classrooms.
Welcome
To The Open House
Of The New
Our Lady of the Wayside
Parish Center and Preschool
October 19-20, 2002
When you tour the new Parish Center, you’ll find:
• Two new pre-school classrooms – on the first floor, west wing.
• Numerous multi-purpose meeting rooms that can be used by various ministries of
the parish and, if necessary, several are large enough they can be used for
educational purposes if determined by the school.
• A new lobby just south of the connecting wing of the two “H” legs. The area had
been an outdoor courtyard.
• An elevator in the lobby provides convenient access for all to the second floor.
• The parish offices are located in the east wing of the building.
OLW Parish Convent and Building Committee
Father Vince Costello
Father Justin Kusibab
Ken Adamick
Terry DaPisa
Pat Kennedy
Arne Lemke
Ed Murnane
Other Special Thanks To:
Alan Musial, OLW Principal
Carol King, Co-Chair of Millennium Campaign
Elizabeth Bellock and OLW Staff Who Worked on Millennium Campaign
Deacon Don Grossnickle (early member of building committee)
402 Millennium Campaign Volunteers
3,000 OLW Parish families
OLW School Board and OLW Management Council
OLW Home School Association
Rev. Vincent F. Costello, Pastor