CHICAGO — Since 1980, the basketball team at DePaul University, the largest Roman Catholic college in the United States, has played its home games in the suburb of Rosemont, Ill., at a nondescript and, lately, mostly empty arena.

For several years, DePaul, which is in the leafy Lincoln Park neighborhood on the North Side and a member of the Big East, has declared its interest in moving back to the city to try to recapture its glory days, when the team was a national powerhouse in the 1970s and ’80s.

In May, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the university announced a proposal for a 10,000 seat, $173 million arena near McCormick Place, a convention center along the lakefront south of downtown. DePaul and the quasi-government agency that runs McCormick Place would chip in $70 million each for the publicly owned venture. The city’s tab would be $33 million, and that has created a bit of a stir.

The unveiling of the plan, which came six days before the Board of Education voted to close 50 public schools because of a $1 billion deficit and underutilization issues, has troubled some.