Chicago White Sox 2024

#426      
Bucktown
ChiefGritty said:
The 78 is very overrated and a mess for traffic and parking purposes.

The Fire did average 21k for the year though.

You'd imagine the women's Red Stars team would move there too (they currently play in the Fire's awful previous location in Bridgeview).

A Wrigley Field-type neighborhood anchor it is certainly not, but it's not nothing either.

What that whole part of the city (from Chinatown to McCormick Place to Northerly Island to the Museum Campus) needs is a big picture vision for how all of those parts will flow and fit together and compliment one another. It's so piecemeal.
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Both the Red Stars and the Fire owners have deeper pockets and more creativity than Reinsdorfs. Something will get done for one or both of them. Lincoln yards seems plausible.
 
#428      
Bucktown
Roundball Sage said:
Absolutely, yes. The Near North Side has known what it wanted to be and has established a reputation that is World famous. That's what is needed for the Near South Side as well. And you've identified some nice pieces that already exist which can form the basis of that new unified identity.

The Near West Side around the UC is building its own new development identity right now. Already, I miss the old glass-strewn and deeply rutted parking lots that used to surround old Chicago Stadium while the weeds poked through where they could find an opening. And trying to local your car on a freezing cold night after the game and cursing to yourself all the while. That was some real local flavor there!

It's strange that Futbol has not gained a strong presence in the City. Of course, the Fire have not been very good for one thing. But Chicago has always been a mix of ethnic communities... from the English and Poles and Italians of the Ellis Island migration to today's large Latino population. Probably if the Fire ever got competitive this would ignite the local Futbol community as they will retain their old favorite franchise identities from where they came from until the local team gives them a reason to care.

And just maybe... Jerry takes the money and runs while the Fire end up with the entire 78 project for themselves.
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The near south was a bunch of railroad yards and light industrial for most of the 20th century. Virtually no one lived there. It is an area at least 3 times the size of Streeterville, and its conversion to a mixed use community is in only maybe the 2nd quarter. With only one bridge between Harrison and 18th the isolation has slowed the development of the entire near south. Tracks leading to Dearborn Station became Dearborn Park, then the Central Station neighborhood was developed on former Illinois Central land and currently Southbank is being built in land were the tracks leading to the old Grand Central Station where located. All the blocks in between have been slowly changing uses since about 1995.

The land for the 78 land is also on land that led to Grand Central Station. It will probably be another 20 years and maybe 40 before the near south side/south loop really to develops into several unique neighborhoods with their own an identities. A stadium at the 78 could go a long way to getting people from outside the area deeper into the area instead of just the museum campus and Soldier Field. It makes too much sense, and Related can execute it. However, ineptitude at City hall and recalcitrance from Reinsdorf may derail something that so obviously should get done.

Interestingly, I saw recently that George Halas had a contract to buy the land behind Dearborn Station in the early 1970's, but he couldn't get City Hall (Richard J) support. Imagine how different that area would be with a Bears stadium at State and Roosevelt.
 
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