The City Council’s Finance Committee voted Monday to use $424 million in property tax revenue to help build new infrastructure around the site of the Chicago Fire’s downtown soccer stadium, currently under construction at The 78, a planned 62-acre, mixed-use development along the Chicago River just south of Roosevelt Road.
Under the plan, which still needs a green light from the full City Council, developer Related Midwest will get reimbursed for building new roads that link the vacant former rail yard to surrounding neighborhoods, along with a walkable riverfront and other pedestrian walkways.
A $216 million podium that includes a city-owned, 1,200-space parking garage and a public plaza above it is the project’s costliest feature. Related Midwest could also, in future phases, develop additional buildings atop the garage.
Although the proposal won overwhelming support from committee members, some aldermen, community activists and labor union representatives complained Mayor Brandon Johnson and city planners were rushing the proposal. They said there hadn’t been enough time to make sure the tax subsidies would truly benefit the public, instead of private interests such as Related Midwest or the Chicago Fire.
Ald. Bill Conway, 34th, whose downtown ward is adjacent to The 78, said the $424 million price tag was more than the combined taxpayer subsidies going to the LaSalle Corridor Revitalization project and the Foundry Park development planned for the former Lincoln Yards site.
“That should give every member of this committee pause,” he said.
Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, who represents much of downtown, praised the overall plan, but said it’s been a struggle over the past few days to get details from the Department of Planning and Development.
“This is a troubling pattern with this administration,” he said. “If you bring more people into the fold, these deals get better.”
Conway said he understood the benefit of creating new roads linking The 78 to downtown, Chinatown and the South Loop, but worried the massive podium and parking garage would benefit the team and developer more than the public. And he opposed the city’s plan to partially fund The 78’s new infrastructure with $287 million from a tax increment financing district in his ward, possibly draining money from other transportation-related infrastructure projects, including planned renovations to Union Station.
“This is about priorities,” he said.
Finance Committee Chair Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, whose ward includes The 78, defended the city’s plan.
No taxpayer dollars were going toward the 22,000-seat, privately financed, $750 million stadium, and the Millennium Park-style podium is essential, she said. It will connect Roosevelt at grade to both the stadium and the rest of The 78, ending the isolation that kept the abandoned rail yard empty and undeveloped for 60 years.
“It is the key to unlocking the site,” she said. “We are quite literally raising a new community from barren land.”
She added that shifting dollars between adjacent tax increment financing districts was not unusual, and city planners told her it would not affect other needed projects.
The Chicago Fire, owned by Morningstar founder and billionaire investor Joe Mansueto, broke ground on the new stadium in March, and said it would be ready for the start of the 2028 season. Related Midwest wants to begin the infrastructure work for The 78 late this year, completing it by 2031.
Other ambitious schemes for The 78 have fallen apart. Related Midwest first won approval in 2019 for a mixed-use development centered on building office skyscrapers, possibly including a new headquarters for Amazon, but the pandemic killed off the office market. And in 2024, the University of Illinois canceled a plan to build a massive research hub at The 78, choosing instead the new Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park on the South Side.
Related Midwest’s future plans for the rest of The 78 remain vague. City planners told committee members they expect the site will eventually create about 10,000 construction jobs, and attract about $8 billion in new investment, enough to build up to 10,000 residences, including 2,000 considered affordable.
