Chicago casino site could be selected in ‘early 2022’
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Chicago officials Friday laid out a process of community input and quick City Council approval of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s preferred casino plan, saying all five bids are on equal footing despite community opposition to one and questions about state financing for another.
Lightfoot plans to select the operator and location of a Chicago casino in “early 2022,” officials said.
City officials said casino operators will be presenting their proposals to the public on Dec. 16.
Afterward, the city will begin negotiating with the selected applicant and hold follow-up community meetings. Lightfoot will then push the proposal through the standard City Council approval process, officials said.
Hard Rock International wants to break into Chicago with a casino just west of Soldier Field, in the wildly ambitious, still-theoretical One Central development.
The plan — to cover a 35-acre train yard with a platform on which a retail, dining and entertainment destination will sit, with thousands of residences and millions of square feet of offices — is still very much up in the air, raising questions about a casino someday anchoring the project.
Deputy Mayor Samir Mayekar told reporters Friday that all five proposals are “fairly self-contained in terms of their need for financing” from public sources, such as tax-increment financing that’s often controversial when it goes to luxury developments near downtown.
But the One Central development does count on $6.5 billion in state money, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker has not approved.
Bally’s has submitted two essentially identical, $1.6 billion proposals at two sites to build a Chicago casino.
One is the McCormick Place Truck Marshaling Yard, a 28-acre parking lot south of McCormick Place.
That plan has drawn stiff opposition from Ald. Sophia King, 4th, who noted people living in the nearby Bronzeville neighborhood have long disliked the idea.
City Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett on Friday declined to rule out either the truck yard plan or the One Central idea that still waits on state money.
“We’re evaluating all of the proposals,” Huang Bennett said. “All of the proposals that have been provided that we’ve shared some information on are qualified proposals. They’re all being treated equally.”
The other proposed Bally’s site is the 30-acre Freedom Center site, which was acquired in 2019 by Dallas-based Nexstar Media Group as part of its $4.1 billion purchase of Tribune Media — the former broadcast parent of Tribune Publishing.
Built in 1981, the Freedom Center at 777 W. Chicago Ave. prints the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers. It has also housed the Chicago Tribune newsroom since the newspaper exited its lease at Prudential Plaza in January and moved into smaller quarters within the massive printing plant.
Chicago-based Rush Street Gaming, which owns four casinos, including Rivers Casino Des Plaines — the top-grossing venue in Illinois — has partnered with two developers on separate proposals to build a Chicago casino.
Rush Street Chairman Neil Bluhm testified earlier this month against a proposed ordinance to allow Wrigley Field, Soldier Field and other Chicago stadiums to host their own sports betting facilities. Bluhm argued the sportsbooks would cannibalize casino revenue, which the city is counting on to help plug its yawning public pension deficit.
But Lightfoot — who in 2019 said she opposed the state law allowing the stadium sportsbooks because “such a proposal has the potential to undermine the viability of any Chicago-based casino through the diversion of customers and revenue from a casino” — has changed her tune in recent weeks. She earlier this week said she expects the stadium sportsbook to pass the City Council in December.
Mayekar on Friday said “we really haven’t seen a significant cannibalization” of casino revenue by sportsbooks in other cities. “So we really do believe these can coexist, and this is something we’ll be working through with the City Council in terms of working within the state framework to pursue,” he said.
