Construction has begun on what is billed as the most expensive Major League Soccer stadium in the professional league’s history, a $750 million project that ends a yearslong wait for activity on one of the nation’s largest urban development sites.
Longer term, the developer and officials say the Chicago Fire stadium project has the potential to help create an entire new neighborhood just south of the Loop business district. It’s the type of goal pursued by developers in other big metropolitan areas, for example greater Los Angeles, where billionaire Stan Kroenke has pushed to establish a media, entertainment and technology district around SoFi Stadium, home to the Rams, the football team he owns.
Fire owner Joe Mansueto, founder of financial services firm Morningstar, is a billionaire. Aside from seeking an agreement with the city to fund infrastructure, the new Chicago stadium will be privately funded.
Work on the soccer stadium just south of the Loop business district stands out at a time when huge real estate deals have proved difficult to pull off in the United States, even for a well-located site in one of the nation’s largest cities.
Mansueto, MLS Commissioner Don Garber, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Fire coach and director of football Gregg Berhalter, Fire players and others attended a groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday at The 78, the sprawling development site along the Chicago River between the South Loop and Chinatown.
During the event marking the start of the project, Mansueto told the assembled crowd the project is “a statement that Chicago is worth investing in and has a great future ahead of it.” He added that “we hope it inspires others to say yes to investing in Chicago, the third-largest market in the country.”
The 22,000-seat stadium, set to become the city’s first new professional sports venue to open since the 1990s, will be built on about 10 acres within the larger site controlled by Chicago developer Related Midwest.
That firm, part of New York-based Related Companies, has been planning a multibillion, mixed-use development on the 62-acre site for several years. The project’s name is a reference to the sheer size of the project, which Related Midwest says will create the city’s 78th neighborhood.
Pandemic disrupts plans
Related Midwest won city zoning approval for a massive project on the site, which would include skyscrapers as tall as 950 feet with space for offices, apartments, hotels, restaurants, shops and a University of Illinois-funded Discovery Partners Institute research institute.
But the arrival of COVID-19 and rising borrowing and construction costs, among other factors, left the dirt untouched in the years that followed, with aspects of the design — including office space — in flux.
Plot twists have included the research center backing out of the project and another professional sports team, baseball’s Chicago White Sox, showing interest in constructing a new ballpark at The 78.
Plenty of questions remain, including how infrastructure such as roads to support the new stadium and The 78 project will be funded. Fire and city officials have said in recent months that talks continue for public dollars to improve access to the site.
While Tuesday’s event was ceremonial, the soccer club said construction work is set to begin in earnest this week, with plans to move into the new stadium for the 2028 season.
Other Chicago projects underway
The Fire stadium becomes one of the largest development projects underway in Chicago, joining projects such as a 30-acre Bally’s casino complex on the former Freedom Center site in River West and Related Midwest’s 72-story, 635-unit apartment tower at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive near Lake Michigan. That building is the first of two residential skyscrapers planned on the former site of the Chicago Spire, a project scrapped in 2008 that was designed to be the tallest building the Western Hemisphere.
Mansueto considered multiple development sites in the city before choosing to develop a portion of the 62-acre site where Related Midwest for years has planned a mixed-use development with rows of new skyscrapers.
“We look forward to getting this stadium up, bringing Chicago together and jump-starting a whole new neighborhood,” Mansueto said.
The team won City Council approval for the Gensler-designed stadium in September.
Gensler, for its part, is no stranger to stadium projects. The architecture firm's work includes the 22,000-seat BMO Stadium in Los Angeles and the 35,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego.
“Sports and entertainment districts have become a new center of gravity for many cities,” Gensler said in a study last year. “These developments are built around a stadium as vibrant neighborhoods where communities gather, fans and families come together and culture is celebrated year-round.”
Fire officials opened a technology-driven experience center within the historic Wrigley Building as part of efforts to secure commitments for luxury suites, season tickets and a sponsor for naming rights in the new stadium.
It will be the first new professional sports stadium built in the city since the United Center, home to the NBA’s Chicago Bulls and NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks on the Near West Side, opened in 1994.
Wintrust Arena opened in the South Loop as home to the DePaul University men’s and women’s basketball teams in 2017, with the WNBA’s Chicago Sky later moving its games there in 2024.
City’s teams pursue new homes, improvements
Groundbreaking for the Fire site arrived at a time of flux for Chicago’s long-unchanged sports venues.
The NFL’s Chicago Bears appear all but certain to move out of the city as they seek a modern replacement for Soldier Field east of The 78 in the South Loop. Fire games also are held at Soldier Field.
The Bears own a potential stadium site in northwestern suburban Arlington Heights, but the team also has threatened to leave the state for Hammond, Indiana, with officials from that state offering massive public subsidies.
Owners of the Blackhawks and Bulls are set to embark on a $7 billion, mixed-use development around the United Center, while the White Sox have considered sites including The 78 for a new stadium to replace their South Side venue.
“This first major new stadium development project in our city in more than 30 years is a signal that Chicago is never done and never outdone,” Johnson said. “And far from it. We expect the Chicago Fire stadium to be an anchor on The 78 that will attract recreation, dining, cultural spaces and investments for our entire city.
Other events, such as concerts and other sporting events, are expected to be held at the new venue.
Garber said stadium projects in Chicago and other cities are key steps in the growth of MLS. “What league can be viable without having homes that are cathedrals to the sport?” he said.
Once a railyard, the site has been vacant for decades. A portion of the site is land created when engineers straightened a curvy area of the river in the 1920s to help barge traffic. Now, the river is envisioned as one way to bring soccer supporters to the site, with water taxi stops included in the design.