3 minutes ago, 77 Hitmen said:

From the article: "Why is Ishbia going through all this work of creating new companies, hiring lobbyists and contractors, all to push Amtrak out of their South Loop location?"

That's quite a bit of editorializing by Josh Nelson. Is Amtrak actually being "pushed out"? I've been hearing that Amtrak had already wanted to move their maintenance facility for a few years now in order to provide more space for their operations. But, this makes it sound like Ishbia and his group are putting pressure on Amtrak to do something they don't want to do.

Amtrak wanted more space, by all other reports.

18 minutes ago, 77 Hitmen said:

From the article: "Why is Ishbia going through all this work of creating new companies, hiring lobbyists and contractors, all to push Amtrak out of their South Loop location?"

That's quite a bit of editorializing by Josh Nelson and a very loaded statement. Is Amtrak actually being "pushed out"? I've been hearing that Amtrak had already wanted to move their maintenance facility for a few years now in order to provide more space for their operations. But, according to Sox Machine, Ishbia and his group are putting pressure on Amtrak to do something they don't want to do......which doesn't seem to match what's been reported as what's going on here.

Yes it's been widely reported that Amtrak has wanted to modernize it's facilities and increase indoor space for repair/maintenance. It's a win-win for both the Sox and Amtrak. The only one who can be perceived as being "pushed out" would be BNSF if they continue to try and acquire that lot.

7 minutes ago, DoUEvenShift said:

Yes it's been widely reported that Amtrak has wanted to modernize it's facilities and increase indoor space for repair/maintenance. It's a win-win for both the Sox and Amtrak. The only one who can be perceived as being "pushed out" would be BNSF if they continue to try and acquire that lot.

Yeah, a $900M project funded by a federal grant and private investment that would make Amtrak operations more efficient....plus, there were Amtrak officials at the meeting making their pitch. That hardly sounds like Amtrak is being pushed out here. The community concerns are legitimate, but Sox Machine shouldn't bullshit us about this either. The item below shows how to cover this without being slanted.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the "advanced talks" to buy the BNSF property. How does that benefit BNSF/Metra? Maybe the value of the land is what is making them open to selling their property. Get lots of money for that land and build a new, modern maintenance facility somewhere else along the BNSF line.

I'll also add that this would also be a "win" for Northwestern Medicine as this would free up land for them to build a medical innovation campus near downtown.

Block Club Chicago

Bridgeport Residents Furious About Amtrak Rail Yard Plans...

Amtrak’s $900 million plan to relocate the yard from the South Loop could help achieve future White Sox owner Justin Ishbia’s rumored goal of moving the team to that vacated Amtrak facility — leaving

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by 77 Hitmen

In the comment section at Sox Machine, Following up: First domino in Justin Ishbia’s South Loop plan tips from Chaussettes Blanches :

"On this topic, Ishbia seems to be the guy who can solve a rubik's cube in a few seconds, while McCaskey/Warren are the guys who get their fingers stuck in Chinese handcuffs and don't know how to escape."

One of the best line's I read in a while,

1 hour ago, Green Line said:

If I was a Bridgeport resident I would be angry too. Losing the White Sox will be sad and a negative for the neighborhood. That said, moving is the better overall choice for the long term health of the club.

The White Sox should have moved out of Bridgeport years ago. JR had the opportunity to build a stadium in the South Loop in the late1980s and he declined the offer.

1 hour ago, Green Line said:

If I was a Bridgeport resident I would be angry too. Losing the White Sox will be sad and a negative for the neighborhood. That said, moving is the better overall choice for the long term health of the club.

I agree with you. It will be a great move for the club.

17 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

The White Sox should have moved out of Bridgeport years ago. JR had the opportunity to build a stadium in the South Loop in the late1980s and he declined the offer.

That's not accurate. Reinsdorf agreeed in 1986 to move the Sox to a proposed domed stadium on the current 78 site. But the deal was contingent on the Bears also moving there, and Michael McCaskey decided to stay in Soldier Field instead:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1986/06/16/bears-sack-mayors-stadium/

13 minutes ago, kba said:

That's not accurate. Reinsdorf agreeed in 1986 to move the Sox to a proposed domed stadium on the current 78 site. But the deal was contingent on the Bears also moving there, and Michael McCaskey decided to stay in Soldier Field instead:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1986/06/16/bears-sack-mayors-stadium/

Great article. McCaskey was a bit salty.

I forgot about the USFL, interesting:

"Stadium insiders acknowledge that hard feelings exist between the owners of the Bears and the Sox. Some of those feelings stem from the $1.5 billion antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Football League against the National Football League. Sox president Eddie Einhorn, who hopes to start a USFL team here, is among the plaintiffs and McCaskey among the defendants."

1 minute ago, Falstaff said:

Great article. McCaskey was a bit salty.

I forgot about the USFL, interesting:

"Stadium insiders acknowledge that hard feelings exist between the owners of the Bears and the Sox. Some of those feelings stem from the $1.5 billion antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Football League against the National Football League. Sox president Eddie Einhorn, who hopes to start a USFL team here, is among the plaintiffs and McCaskey among the defendants."

3 months later the USFL won their lawsuit and were awarded $3. Trump played a big role in the down fall of the USFL

9 minutes ago, kba said:

That's not accurate. Reinsdorf agreeed in 1986 to move the Sox to a proposed domed stadium on the current 78 site. But the deal was contingent on the Bears also moving there, and Michael McCaskey decided to stay in Soldier Field instead:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1986/06/16/bears-sack-mayors-stadium/

JR had no intention of having a stadium in the South Loop. He wanted to go to Addison Illinois where he owned the land where the proposed stadium was. It didn't work out in Addison and he wound up in Bridgeport. Most of his investors were not happy about the new stadium being built in Bridgeport. They knew its was not a popular location. Then JR changed the original design of the stadium and it wound up with that miserable upper deck that nobody likes. So JR wound up building the stadium in a unpopular location with a upper deck that most people don't want to sit in. Even now they're having a hard time selling tickets in the upper deck.I noticed on ticketmaster that this weekend series with the Mets is basically sold out in the lower deck and the upper deck is not close to being sold out. I'm hoping the new owner doesn't make the same mistake in regards to designing the new stadium..

Particularly with railroads (who control their right of way and very flexible rights to build upon their property), it's a far wiser strategy for residents/neighbors to coalesce around a list of requested enhancements to a project (i.e., please build this sound-buffering wall; we'd like a pedestrian/bicycle overpass/walkway; can you add more greenery to the borders for aesthetics; please donate $x to the community park in the neighborhood, etc.) than to think for a moment that opposing it will do anything at all.

Also, it's changing from a freight yard to a larger passenger service facility building/yard - far less pollution, far less danger of hazardous materials handling; if I lived in the area, I would view that as a huge positive change.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by h. jones

2 hours ago, 77 Hitmen said:

From the article: "Why is Ishbia going through all this work of creating new companies, hiring lobbyists and contractors, all to push Amtrak out of their South Loop location?"

That's quite a bit of editorializing by Josh Nelson and a very loaded statement. Is Amtrak actually being "pushed out"? I've been hearing that Amtrak had already wanted to move their maintenance facility for a few years now in order to provide more space for their operations. But, according to Sox Machine, Ishbia and his group are putting pressure on Amtrak to do something they don't want to do......which doesn't seem to match what's been reported as what's going on here.

Josh is salty he won't be able to conveniently walk to games.

2 hours ago, Green Line said:

If I was a Bridgeport resident I would be angry too. Losing the White Sox will be sad and a negative for the neighborhood. That said, moving is the better overall choice for the long term health of the club.

It's less about moving the Sox and more about a years long construction process to bring a new industrial site. Nobody wants that s%*#. Put it in the Gold Coast, see how they like it.

More concerning is how all of this has skirted well-established democratic processes of community review.

4 minutes ago, nrockway said:

It's less about moving the Sox and more about a years long construction process to bring a new industrial site. Nobody wants that s%*#. Put it in the Gold Coast, see how they like it.

More concerning is how all of this has skirted well-established democratic processes of community review.

Bro, this is Chicago. You get the aldermen on board, nothing else matters.

3 hours ago, ron883 said:

I do wonder what the plan is for parking at the new stadium. Can anybody think of examples of really dense underground/aboveground parking structures that can fit a lot of spaces? I see the Allianz Arena garage in Munich can fit 10,000 cars and has a footprint of about 460ft x 790ft.

When you look at the area west of the Amtrak yard, there are multiple parking lots and some garages. Seems pretty obvious that Ishbia would try to purchase these parking lots and develop them with parking garages. Regardless, I don't think parking will be a major hurdle here.

I wonder if they can somehow include a tailgating area if they do indeed build a stadium at the Amtrak site? It would be a much smaller scale ......certainly not a 40-acre expanse of surface lots like now, but if Ishbia's team could somehow thread that needle of building a near-downtown stadium that is more focused on transit access while still preserving a pre-game ritual that is important to a core group of diehard fans, that would be great.

2 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Bro, this is Chicago. You get the aldermen on board, nothing else matters.

This is a federal government issue and, frankly (unpopular opinion), I've found Dowell to be responsive to the concerns of her constituents. Nicole Lee is an unelected shill though, you're probably right about her. No environmental review is crazy work but I guess that's to be expected considering who's running the EPA.

Neighborhood residents should do everything they can to stop Ishbia from destroying their neighborhood, like local residents have done to stop the building of AI power centers and ICE detention centers. The appearance of a 4 story train warehouse right on 35th street? You git to be kidding me. Noise , rumbling and pollution from diesel engines? Vermin from stagnant rail cars? The destruction of the Armor Fieldhouse and Rate Field with nothing even proposed to replace them? Fine urban planning from the man from Detroit who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I mean, fvk him.

But Ishbia is Chicago's Trump, a guy who seeks to do whatever he, in his sole discretion wants to do. You want ballroom and big Arch? You get ballroom and big Arch. From his overblown mansion in Winnetka, Ishbia has nothing in common with the White Sox fan base or middle class people from the South side of Chicago or Southwest suburbs. He is more powerful than a speeding locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet. Need Kryptonite to stop this greedy billionaire from taking the South side permanently out of the White Sox.

7 minutes ago, nrockway said:

It's less about moving the Sox and more about a years long construction process to bring a new industrial site. Nobody wants that s%*#. Put it in the Gold Coast, see how they like it.

I think this is exactly the problem. Bridgeporters can’t even afford to be upset about losing the Sox; they’ve been ambushed by plans of turning a significant amount of their neighborhood into a railyard/maintenance center. Nobody wants to see that type of industrial development grafted into a thriving neighborhood, let alone the residents. It’s gonna be interesting to see what (if anything) is done to placate the mob.

9 minutes ago, Mouthsider said:

I think this is exactly the problem. Bridgeporters can’t even afford to be upset about losing the Sox; they’ve been ambushed by plans of turning a significant amount of their neighborhood into a railyard/maintenance center. Nobody wants to see that type of industrial development grafted into a thriving neighborhood, let alone the residents. It’s gonna be interesting to see what (if anything) is done to placate the mob.

It's just an odd move if the City is behind it. They've spent so much money since Rahm trying to bougify these areas, now Bridgeport and 'Bronzeville' are gentrifying rapidly and this is the idea? Foolish, a huge waste of limited public funds, annoying to property owners and rent owners, makes it seem like these people hate themselves and their own ideas.

"Vermin from stagnant rail cars?"

Replacing ingress/egress....

8 minutes ago, nrockway said:

It's just an odd move if the City is behind it. They've spent so much money since Rahm trying to bougify these areas, now Bridgeport and 'Bronzeville' are gentrifying rapidly and this is the idea? Foolish, a huge waste of limited public funds, annoying to property owners and rent owners, makes it seem like these people hate themselves and their own ideas.

Is Bridgeport really gentrifying? Because it's been "gentrifying" since I was at IIT in the early 2000s, and not much has changed whenever I've visited friends when back in town or gone to Sox games. It also doesn't have great public transportation access unless you live near Sox/35th red line stop or the Ashland Orange Line stop.

Seems like most of the serious gentrification over the past couple decades has been along the N Milwaukee corridor.

4 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

"Vermin from stagnant rail cars?"

Replacing ingress/egress....

Attempting to make this personal is lame. Regarding Ingress and egress at the 78, Mansueto started building a soccer stadium knowing that ingress and egress would be an issue. Only after construction did Related and Mansueto pressure the City for 440 million in TIF, mainly to to build a parking lot that finally made it possible to gain access off Roosevelt Road. But no, I made that up mother f.

2 minutes ago, almagest said:

Is Bridgeport really gentrifying? Because it's been "gentrifying" since I was at IIT in the early 2000s, and not much has changed whenever I've visited friends when back in town or gone to Sox games. It also doesn't have great public transportation access unless you live near Sox/35th red line stop or the Ashland Orange Line stop.

Seems like most of the serious gentrification over the past couple decades has been along the N Milwaukee corridor.

Drive around the neighborhood East of the stadium.

13 minutes ago, nrockway said:

It's just an odd move if the City is behind it. They've spent so much money since Rahm trying to bougify these areas, now Bridgeport and 'Bronzeville' are gentrifying rapidly and this is the idea? Foolish, a huge waste of limited public funds, annoying to property owners and rent owners, makes it seem like these people hate themselves and their own ideas.

I do think there’s a fine line to walk in which this move, though puzzling, could still serve to positively develop Bridgeport in some ways. h. jones raised some good points regarding concessions:

1 hour ago, h. jones said:

i.e., please build this sound-buffering wall; we'd like a pedestrian/bicycle overpass/walkway; can you add more greenery to the borders for aesthetics; please donate $x to the community park in the neighborhood, etc.

Things like that would be great for the neighborhood, and would definitely help to make lemonade out of Amtrak’s lemons. However, unless prodded by relevant politicians, I’m not sure of Amtrak will do that out of the kindness of their hearts.

I’m pulling for Bridgeport. After all, we wouldn’t be the “South Siders” without our south side neighborhoods.

Oh yea, Armor Park.

The South Park Commissioners acquired the land for this park in 1904.  Development of the park included a fieldhouse, with four clubrooms, two gymnasiums, an assembly hall, and large lobby.  Outdoor amenities such as lawns, walks, and plantings were installed and recreational facilities included an outdoor swimming pool, baseball and football fields, handball and tennis courts, and a children’s playground.  The development was completed in 1905 and there was a dedication of the park that same year.  In 1906, the year after Armour Square opened to the public, President Theodore Roosevelt described the square and nine other related properties as "the most notable civic achievement in any American city."  Nationally renowned landscape architects the Olmsted Brothers and architects Daniel H. Burnham and Co. designed the entire system.

___________ The man from Winnetka has run roughshod with that town to get his Northshore Mar-a-lago . Hate that he is doing whatever he wants now in Chicago.