urbanSTL

^The pizza question has already come up in my Facebook friends list.

Chicago Fire announce new downtown stadium set to open in 2028.

Privately funded, and in an urban location?? Say less. Fantastic news. Good luck to the Fire and can't wait to see this when it opens.

This is interesting as the White Sox were also looking at this space. Going so far as to put down a turf field for a bit last fall.



https://www.mlb.com/news/white-sox-prop ... ark-update

Right now, the CTA faces a $770 million budgetary gap in 2026 due to the expiration of COVID-19 federal grant funding and a decline in ridership. If the shortfall isn’t addressed, the CTA, Metra and Pace could see services slashed by an estimated 40%.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/traffic/tran ... s/3758464/

Chicago’s Dire Finances Hold It Back in Competition Among Cities: 
https://archive.ph/Fu5na

Pretty typical dribble from Bloomberg.

People have been telling me Illinois and Chicago are moments from death for 20 years.

Yes it needs to get its debt situation under control. It’s going to be fine.

Going to a Fire game at Soldier's Field was honestly a miserable experience so best of luck to them.

Ebsy wrote:Going to a Fire game at Soldier's Field was honestly a miserable experience so best of luck to them.

Because you went by car or….?

I used to love going to fire games during their first stint there. Get off the red line at Roosevelt and walk over!

walker wrote: ↑

Jun 07, 2025

Ebsy wrote:Going to a Fire game at Soldier's Field was honestly a miserable experience so best of luck to them.

Because you went by car or….?

I used to love going to fire games during their first stint there. Get off the red line at Roosevelt and walk over!

Had to wait forever for a bus.

I’ve gone to 15 matches at solider field the last two seasons. I personally love it. It’s built for so much more capacity that getting in/out for Fire is so quick. $35 parking steps from a $20 seat.

That said, I plan to buy PSL if offered for the new stadium. It’s really become one of my favorite Chicago experiences.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Jun 03, 2025

This is interesting as the White Sox were also looking at this space. Going so far as to put down a turf field for a bit last fall.



https://www.mlb.com/news/white-sox-prop ... ark-update

Jus to follow up on this, from what I've been reading it sounds like the Fire are only planning on taking up part of 'The 78'. It's a pretty big plot of land, so I don't think the Fire's plans necessarily preclude the White Sox from building a stadium there too. Would be quite the sports entertainment district.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Jun 03, 2025

Chicago Fire announce new downtown stadium set to open in 2028.

Renderings released...

How does a company worth half of the least valuable NHL franchise afford all this?

Is their owner just that wealthy? Financially, I don’t see how this project ever pencils out. They are claiming to build about 5 BPVs here in the middle of a major metro downtown. And they have nowhere near the Cardinals money and we’ve seen these things don’t happen overnight.

Also makes me sad we continue to sit with an empty bottle district if they do actually build this. Seems we always watch other places actually build a proposal that we had a similar proposal for 20 years earlier.

Also, the big development around it is under the control of Related Midwest.

delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑

Jun 17, 2025

How does a company worth half of the least valuable NHL franchise afford all this?

Is their owner just that wealthy? Financially, I don’t see how this project ever pencils out. They are claiming to build about 5 BPVs here in the middle of a major metro downtown. And they have nowhere near the Cardinals money and we’ve seen these things don’t happen overnight.

Also makes me sad we continue to sit with an empty bottle district if they do actually build this. Seems we always watch other places actually build a proposal that we had a similar proposal for 20 years earlier.

Downtown Chicago has some things that the Cardinals simply don't have, namely extremely high demand for pretty much anything they can build.

We also now know that there has been plenty of demand for BPV3 and that it’s hasn’t been built because non-DeWitt owners of the Cardinals are cheapskates

Part of the Pulitzer family. Pratt family. Lots of folks from out of town and their descendants.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/st-louis ... p-history/

St. Louis could have a lot of nice things if it had 1% annual growth, hell even a consistent 0.5%.  While Chicago population has been stagnant or declining for many years, its core population continues to see strong growth.

Well Chicago’s business community didn’t bail on its downtown in the name of being very very racist