Tag: planned development

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.

They didn’t pave paradise, but they still put up a parking lot

November 1, 2016 / / 1 Comment

The building

The building. Image: Cook County Assessor

Two light industrial building were purchased and demolished in order to build more car parking for WMS Gaming in the Avondale community area. Congratulations on the success of WMS Gaming that they are hiring more people, but this kind of development is transit “dis-oriented”.

Nearly an entire block face of California from Melrose to Roscoe will have a surface parking lot. Across the street to the west, and across the street to the south is entirely residential.

The Chicago Department of Planning and Development staff wrote in their report to the Chicago Plan Commission that the project “Promotes economically beneficial development patterns that are compatible with the character of existing neighborhoods (per 17-8-0103) as evidenced by the compatibility of off-street parking within the broader industrial park character of the surrounding area.”

The Plan Commission had to approve the demolition of these buildings and the additional parking lots because they were not allowed in Industrial Planned Development 1151.

The change was neither an economically productive use of the land, nor is it “compatible with the character” of half of the surrounding area.

This might be economically productive for WMS Gaming, so more of its workers can drive. But there are more ways to get around than driving.

WMS Gaming is near the 52-California bus route. It’s also two blocks from the 77-Belmont bus route and 152-Addison bus route. WMS Gaming can operate a shuttle to CTA or Metra stations.

Turning what was – and still could be – productive space has now been turned into entirely productive