Tag: Chicago Fire

construction equipment building a soccer stadium, with Roosevelt Road in the foreground

Chicago is about to spend millions on a new parking garage and nothing on transit at The 78

July 10, 2026 / / 0 Comments

This week I asked my alderperson to defer the finance committee’s vote on a massive funding package that would have the city own a parking garage while at the same time making zero investments in transit.

Dear Alderperson Conway,

I think it’s prudent and appropriate if you would, as Finance Committee Vice Chair, to defer voting on the $425 million TIF package for The 78 until several questions and planning issues are resolved. I think you’re the ideal alderperson to insist that a commitment this large has greater scrutiny before it moves and I’m asking you to defer the vote and build consensus on the committee, and gain more support from Chicagoans, to hold it until there’s more analysis and understanding of the pros and cons.

This public commitment deserves more vetting and public engagement than has happened so far and the current timeline will permit. Three concerns stand out.

First, a large share of this package would build an approximately 1,200-space, below-grade garage that the City would own and operate, and I don’t believe public TIF dollars should be underwriting a permanent and expensive parking structure, especially given the city’s track record as a steward of its own parking. In 2006 Chicago leased the garages under Grant and Millennium parks to investors for $563 million over 99 years, a deal that later cost taxpayers roughly $62 million in 2015 1for allowing competing parking and eventually collapsed into default for the investors. Operating parking garages is a risky investment. Before the committee votes, I’d want to understand why a new City-owned garage is a wise use of this money, when it would actually begin generating revenue, and how any proceeds would be directed toward community needs rather than servicing the project or paying back debt used to construct it.

Second, this package includes no transit investment. The original vision for The 78 was anchored by a new CTA Red Line station inside the site, at roughly 15th and Clark, which would ensure that the future residents, tenants, and visitors would not have to rely on cars to get around and add to the local traffic. Public funding to build a new ‘L’ station (approved by City Council in April 2019) would do far more for the city’s climate and equity goals than attracting more driving to the site. Why is the city planning to fund a single-purpose garage while the transit that was supposed to anchor the project is left out?

Third, The 78 has a tenuous plan for its second phase once the soccer stadium is built. The project has long promised thousands of homes in future phases but assurances that residential will be built, and how and when essential infrastructure will be built and funded, are inadequate. The September 2025 presentation2 to Chicago Plan Commission showed the residential area being used as surface car parking for an indefinite period of time. Before the city puts up roughly $425 million, there should be a defined phase-two plan that includes a substantial residential component. The transit-adjacent site is the ideal location for new housing: it would help ease the region’s shortage and give people the option to live near jobs and transit.

I’m asking for your help to get better answers, a better plan, and additional public input, by deferring the vote in Finance. And thank you for the scrutiny you’ve already brought to the city’s finances. 

Respectfully,

Steven Vance

  1. Chicago Sun-Times ↩︎
  2. Chicago Plan Commission ↩︎

site plan and rendering showing the features and buildings planned for the first game at the stadium
site plan and rendering showing the features and buildings planned for the first game at the stadium. Image: Gensler

Chicago Fire share the stadium plan they plan to share with the Plan Commission

August 22, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Updated September 10 to add this link to the traffic and transportation study, and the town hall video hosted by 3rd Ward Alderperson Pat Dowell.

The Chicago Fire owner, Joe Mansueto, plans to build a soccer stadium on “The 78”, a vacant property in the South Loop. The 78 is a planned development that was approved about six years ago to have office towers and about 10,000 homes in multiple buildings. Since the stadium will significantly alter the approved plan, Related Midwest, the owner of The 78, needs to present the revision to Chicago Plan Commission and gain their approval before also gaining approval from the City Council’s zoning committee and City Council.

Rendering of the stadium, looking north-northeast. Other renderings from the set show the area between the stadium and the riverwalk eventually being redeveloped into buildings and differently-designed outdoor spaces.

Here’s what’s changed

We can see what Mansueto and RM are proposing because they submitted their zoning change application to revise the PD back in July, which was subsequently posted in the City Clerk’s online legislation database. (A zoning change application and a Planned Development amendment are amendments to city law; refer to the approved plan in this PD 1434 document.)

  • The soccer stadium would be located approximately between 13th and 14th Streets. The rights of way for these two streets would be delineated and “dedicated” to the public.
  • Metra tracks would remain where they are. At the north edge of the site they enter the site about 185′ west of Clark Street, and then gradually shift to the east to hug Clark Street. The original plan would realign the tracks so that new streets could intersect Clark Street.
  • For the planners, the PD subareas’ boundaries are reconfigured.
  • Crescent Park is out of the plan. This central park would follow the historical Chicago River alignment, before it was straightened from Polk Street to 18th Street in 1926.
  • The riverwalk would be narrowed to 40′ from the currently approved plan for a 75′ wide riverwalk and 25′ “riverfront amenity zone” adjacent to buildings. (City law requires riverwalks to be a minimum of 30′ wide.)
Proposed open space plan

The stadium would have these pedestrian and bicycle access points:

  1. Wells Street, south from Polk Street
  2. Wentworth Avenue, north from 18th Street
  3. A newly built LaSalle Street, south from the elevated Roosevelt Road. This is also where transit riders from the Roosevelt ‘L’ station or any of the buses that use Roosevelt or Clark would access the site.

There would not be access from Clark Street and points east; some of the Dearborn Park and Burnham Station residents may prefer this, given how some of them reacted when a new CTA Red Line station was proposed at the existing substation on the east side of Clark Street at 15th Street. RM eventually moved the proposal to be within The 78.

The proposed site plan also shows a publicly owned parking structure in phase one, below the Roosevelt Road elevation.

Site plan showing the stadium and a publicly owned parking structure

What’s next

Expect another 3rd Ward town hall, in September before the next Plan Commission meeting on September 18. The Plan Commission agenda hasn’t been set so it’s not confirmed that the development team will present on September 18.

The plan can also change again, between now and the Plan Commission meeting. What’s presented at Plan Commission will be what is presented to City Council.