Mayor Brandon Johnson proposed a $425 million taxpayer subsidy Wednesday to pay for public infrastructure at the Near South Side tract where the Chicago Fire are building a stadium.
The City Council approved plans to develop the parcel known as The 78 in 2019 and 2022, including the potential massive property tax fund payout for infrastructure improvements. But this is the first indication Johnson wants the public money to go toward infrastructure around the 22,000-seat privately funded stadium Fire owner Joe Mansueto is building at the site.
At the time the council approved the Fire stadium project last September, Mansueto and the team won widespread praise for not relying on taxpayer money to build it as the Chicago Bears and Chicago White Sox angled for public funds. But as Johnson introduced the proposal to the City Council on Wednesday, the need for taxpayer money became clearer.
The massive payout from the area’s tax increment financing district would pay for street construction, work on Metra tracks, river wall improvements and a 1,200-space below-ground parking structure owned by the city, according to a statement from Johnson spokesperson Griffin Krueger.
After the meeting Wednesday, Johnson justified the payout as an investment in the people of Chicago.
“This neighborhood has sat dormant through multiple administrations, I activated it, and the type of impact it’s going to have, not just in the South Loop, but Bronzeville, Chinatown, this is exactly what the people of Chicago elected me to do, was to invest in them, create jobs and opportunities, generate revenue so that we can continue to make those critical investments,” he told reporters.
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The long-awaited site finally found an anchor tenant with the soccer team. The development team led by Related Midwest hopes to build as many as 10,000 residential units and retail and office space with the $8 billion project, Krueger wrote.
Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, pushed back Wednesday when asked if the subsidy contradicts the claim that the stadium was built with private money.
Dowell, whose ward includes the site and who heads the Finance Committee, cited the need to adjust the Metra tracks, a goal of adding a southern entrance at the site and plans to connect the Ping Tom Memorial Park riverwalk to the site and downtown.
“The infrastructure is not just for the stadium, it’s for the future development,” she said. “There’s a lot of infrastructure needs that need to be addressed.”
Also Wednesday, aldermen rejected an effort to impose $1,000 fines on parents whose children break Chicago’s curfew and other rules, an effort aimed at curbing so-called “teen takeovers.”
Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, proposed the ordinance as a way to force greater parental responsibility, but his colleagues overwhelmingly blocked it from discussion in a 32-16 vote.
Lopez’s ordinance would have put parents on the hook when they knowingly allowed their children to break the law or failed to block it through “insufficient control.”
Before the vote, Lopez said parents must take more responsibility for their kids and brushed off the attack from critics that the fine would be too hard on working families.
“You know what doesn’t cost you money? Paying attention to your kid, and that’s exactly what parents need to do right now,” he said.
After the vote, Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th, argued the ordinance wouldn’t have prevented the youth gatherings or violence. City Hall should talk with teens to learn about what they need and why they are acting out, not add penalties, she said.
“It puts an additional financial burden on the family. I believe that businesses should be safe, I believe that communities deserve to be safe, but that ordinance wasn’t an answer to this,” she said.
Aldermen also voted down a measure that would have banned so-called “sweepstakes” gambling machines across the city in a 33-to-15 vote.
Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, said the machines that skirt state laws by paying out in non-cash awards, like gift certificates, undercut the tax revenue that would otherwise be generated by the video gambling machines made legal throughout the city in December.
“We know that we need this revenue,” he said. “And we know that once the city gets up and operational, we will bring in between $60 and $100 million.”
He argued the city is slow-walking licensing approval for the new gambling machines set to soon appear in bars and other locations across the city.
The sweepstakes machines earn no money for the city because they are not regulated by the state’s gambling authority, even though around 7,000 already exist in Chicago, he said.
“There are some areas in this city that have 20 to 30 machines in a gas station. That’s a mini casino, operating illegally, that we’re not getting a dime from,” he said.
But Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, said Beale and others trying to ban the sweepstakes machines were “tripping over hundred dollar bills to pick up nickels.” The video gambling machines set to spread in Chicago neighborhoods generate tax revenue at a far lower rate than casino slot machines, he said.
The city will harm people of color whose businesses benefit from the sweepstakes machines by banning them and clearing the way for the video gambling machines, Ervin said, likening the changes to marijuana legalization that he said did not create opportunity for Black and Latino people.
“We are poised to make the same mistake again around this issue of video gaming, because I cannot find a single solitary Negro or Hispanic that is in this business,” he said. “Let’s not continue to make the same mistakes economically, let’s not continue to lock people out that historically have been from disinvested communities.”