Mouthsider

She really should have brought this up while Jerry was pushing for the 78, right? If there was ever going to be another taxpayer-funded stadium/site for the Sox, it would be a lot easier to pitch it as investing in the existing site rather than building anew on abandoned land in the South Loop. She should have known her time was up when Ishbia put out his commitment to privately funding the new stadium. Lee continues to demonstrate that she is several steps behind. Which stage of grief is “bargaining”, again?

Seems a little too late for this, to say the least.

This, like the “lawyer up” comment, is also posturing by Hintz. There’s no quote from Lee to back up that assertion.

It reads as Hintz making that part up to add stakes. The politicians against this know they can’t make get their way if this blows up into a legal issue. Mike Quigley even said as much when speaking to residents with Lee, Mendoza, Pappas, and others, something along the lines of, “We will not win this if it goes to the courts,” which is a telling statement. Lawyering up would waste a lot of money and only serve to prolong death.

Per the Sun-Times: Bridgeport Bears? Chicago firm releases plans for glitzy new domed stadium at Sox park site This is a little silly, but I thought it’d be worth sharing. Kinda cool to see a professional visualization for an unofficial (and far-fetched) concept.

Indeed. I’ve been of the belief that an environmental study will be conducted and the community will have some level of input since the start of this. Nothing surprising, but still nice to see we’ve finally made it to this point.

It seems this will be the final nail in the coffin for any local opposition. Hard to drum up any doubts when the local community gets to be a part of the process. Kudos to Ishbia/Amtrak for going this route.

Similarly, this part about how the Ishbia brothers decided to put initial prioritization on growing the team fanbase, as opposed to maximizing funds, stood out to me: So it would seem Justin is very much interested in both growing the target audience of the White Sox with a new stadium while also ensuring that us existing fans have the accessibility to continue to support the team and watch/attend games. Wonderful.

You’ve been killing it this week with all the breaking news/most recent info. Thank you!

That one takes the cake, though I’m a fan of this one: Ah yes, the erroneous and biased information that we’re spreading by quoting Crain’s articles.

Shoutout to Ishbia for doing the work that Lee should be doing: asking “What comes next?” after the Amtrak maintenance center goes up and the Sox leave Bridgeport. But to your point, you’re right. That amount of land in that nice of a location is far too valuable to remain vacant. I’m sure nobody in Bridgeport would say no to a large mixed-use housing/retail development.

Wow. I was wondering how they’d work around the change in elevation at the Hallmark site. Credit where credit’s due, that looks beautiful.

It sure doesn’t appear so, which is the most frustrating part of these public meetings. There is a very realistic path for the city to encourage Amtrak to develop on, say, the Global 1 site instead of the Canal St. Yards, but Alderman Lee either isn’t aware enough to do so or doesn’t care enough to try. Regardless, she’s ensuring that nothing is actually being accomplished except generating slight media buzz against the Railyards development. Only God knows what’s going to happen to 35th and Shields (after the Sox move) with her at the helm.

This isn’t an opinion piece; one author is primarily a business and labor journalist, and the other formerly wrote for Crain’s. It’s just a timeline of events/communication between the significant parties involved in the proposed Railyards development. This thread already has a frequent poster of lengthy opinion pieces. I’m not attempting to add any more.

If you are referring to the “bait and switch” comment, that originated from Pritzker, which the authors explain: Afterwards, the authors provide Canal Edge’s perspective:

My own takeaway from this is that Alderman Lee (and others in the loop) likely did not initially care about Amtrak developing a rail maintenance facility in Bridgeport, but rather braced for outcry regarding the White Sox moving. However, it seems the local residents’ feelings are the largely opposite; they detest an industrial development in Bridgeport but don’t feel as strongly about the White Sox moving to 14th St. It looks like Lee played her cards wrong. If she was proactive in this process, she could have nipped Amtrak building on the Canal St. Yards in the bud early, maybe opting for them to acquire a different site. Instead, she chose to wait, but time is just not on her side. Anyways, all this article really shows is that there’s likely nothing that can be done to interrupt Ishbia’s process. Politicians were communicated with well ahead of this summer, and it seems none protested at that time. The only slight hiccup is that alleged state-controlled easement, but if push comes to shove I’d wager Amtrak would use eminent domain powers to claim it.

Long article by the Tribune: Who knew about Amtrak’s Bridgeport plans, and when did they know? Archive link

❤️

Indeed. They currently are awaiting approval per the Crain’s article I just linked. The findings in that study’s report, if accurate to Amtrak’s stance, should change the tune of this whole situation pretty quick.

https://archive.is/1Cz3K Similar article to the Sun-Times one. It seems the City Council is united on their stance.

I feel like this is the part being swept under the rug on this thread. Yes, Amtrak can legally fulfill this plan without the city’s expressly given consent, but the city can do a lot to slow down that process. It is well within both Amtrak’s and Ishbia’s interests to do what they can to get the city onboard.

Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Celebrating 100 years of baseball tradition along the Chicago River would surely beat doing the same within a sea of asphalt.

His residency is definitely what’s driving him to report on this process, but I don’t think that his reporting is inherently a bad thing. He’s consistently been ahead of the curve across a few stages of this saga. I’d go as far as saying he’s been the most informative source besides Crain’s.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/real-estate/commercial/ccb-justin-ishbia-south-loop-retail-20261006/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=aware%3Aupr%3Apgv%3Aall%3Aalways&utm_medium=soc-own&utm_content=twt%3Aread&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1791318423 Pretty significant purchase from Ishbia. Among the existing retail, this site also has a large parking garage. Not sure if it could be used for game day parking. Archive link: https://archive.is/AsB4R