Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and all 17 members of the board on Thursday signed on to a resolution opposing “in its current form and location” a proposed Amtrak maintenance facility in Bridgeport that has been tied to the White Sox potentially moving from that neighborhood to a new ballpark in the South Loop.
The board’s stance adds to the mountain of local opposition to the plan and puts the almost-entirely Democratic county leadership at odds with the Chicago Federation of Labor, a strong proponent of the Amtrak project because of the hundreds of construction and permanent trade jobs it would provide.
Commissioner John Daley — whose family has represented Bridgeport for decades — introduced the resolution directly to the full board.
Daley and Bridgeport Ald. Nicole Lee, 11th, are helping lead opposition to the plan alongside other residents of Bridgeport, Chinatown and Armour Square, who shouted down project proponents at a community meeting last week. Lee and 37 co-sponsors introduced an almost-identical resolution to the Chicago City Council Wednesday.
The maintenance center plan would move the current maintenance facility from the South Branch of the Chicago River at 14th Street over to Canal Street between Cermak Road and 38th Street, just west of the White Sox’s Rate Field.
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The move would potentially free up space for a new riverfront home for the White Sox at the vacated 14th Street site. Canal Edge, the company controlled by billionaire minority White Sox owner Justin Ishbia, is developing the new Amtrak facility and plans to spend $125 million on it.
Ishbia is also in support of moving a new park for the White Sox to the vacated 14th Street site, just across the river from the planned Chicago Fire stadium at The 78.
But the current plan, the city and county resolutions said, “raises significant concerns regarding diesel locomotive emissions and particulate matter, noise, vibration, hazardous materials, fuel and wastewater, stormwater runoff, potential soil and groundwater contamination, industrial lighting, construction impacts, and the cumulative environmental impacts associated with existing and proposed railroad and transportation activities.”
The Chicago Federation of Labor, meanwhile, hosted a Thursday afternoon press conference to highlight the project’s benefits. They said it will create 3,000 construction jobs during the 18-month build-out and 400 permanent jobs for mechanics, electricians, and other skilled positions, with much of the work performed indoors.
There, CFL President Bob Reiter criticized the county commissioners’ opposition. He said a new maintenance facility at the Canal Street railyard would service trains indoors, a cleaner, more environmentally friendly use than heavy freight operations, where trains idle outdoors and emit fumes.
“The County Board is missing the full scope of the issue at hand,” Reiter said. “Sixty-seven hundred people lived within the same distance when it was a heavy-use freight railyard. If this property doesn’t move to Amtrak, it will (again) be a heavy-use freight yard.”
Steven Segerlin, Amtrak’s head of commercial development, said the company wants to break ground in 2027, but promised to continue engaging with the railyard’s neighbors. And although city or county officials can’t veto the project, federal rules require Amtrak to coordinate with local governments, he said.
“We must go through those steps to use those funds,” he said.
Ahead of the press conference, Reiter took to the podium at the County Board meeting during public testimony to blast the resolution’s hasty introduction. “Last Friday, this resolution was filed, it wasn’t alerted to any of us until Tuesday,” Reiter said.
As leader of the Cook County Health Board’s finance committee, Reiter said commissioners should hold themselves to the same transparency standards they expect of him.
Both resolutions ask Amtrak to put a hold on their project until “an environmental determination and supporting studies” are completed and publicized and after federal rail and environmental officials take questions from the board.
In a statement, Preckwinkle said: “The residents living near this site have legitimate concerns about the air they breathe, the noise they’ll live with and the traffic on their streets … Before it moves forward, we need a comprehensive assessment of its environmental and community impacts.”
During debate, Daley said moving the rail yard next to the river would limit future economic opportunities at the site, and “it also makes no sense” to locate a facility so close to residential areas.
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“The community deserves a better environmental review. We have serious questions about why” Amtrak didn’t ask for the highest level of federal environmental review, Daley said.
He also defended his support of organized labor throughout his career. “I strongly have supported union jobs in my position … there wasn’t one contract that I ever voted against, but more importantly, I supported the revenue” that paid for those contracts, Daley said.
The board separately approved a batch of costly settlements totaling roughly $22 million, including $9 million for a man injured when officers’ cars crashed into him while he was riding a scooter.
Commissioners also approved $3 million to Reginald Henderson, who was exonerated after spending 26 years in prison for the murder of 10-year-old Rodney Collins in 1994. He alleged his prosecution and conviction were based on a coerced confession at the hands of detectives who worked under disgraced Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
baiduhai’s Brian Rogal contributed.