Details and renderings have been revealed for the potential stadium redevelopment known as The Railyards adjacent to the South Loop. The plans are being led by the future owner of the Chicago White Sox, Justin Ishbia, who envisions a new stadium complex set to replace a majority of the existing Amtrak railyard along the Chicago River and across from McDonald’s Park.
Site context maps of The Railyards via Google Maps
Earlier this year, it was announced that Ishbia was in line to purchase the 47-acre riverfront site for roughly $700 million. This is after Amtrak began working on designing a new consolidated rail yard in Bridgeport, set to join the existing Union Pacific yard near Rate Field, bringing backlash from neighbors due to pollution and the lack of potential to redevelop the existing stadium.
Rendering of The Railyards by Aecom
The renderings show a brand-new brick-clad stadium hugging the river, with a majority of the seating on one side, similar to Oracle Park in San Francisco. Joining this would be a large multi-tiered commercial plaza along the river to the north of the stadium, various pedestrian bridges over the tracks, and various mixed-use low-rises and residential high-rises.
Site plan of The Railyards by Aecom
Another anchor would be a brand-new Northwestern Medicine health center along Canal Street. North of Roosevelt Road would be another small park leading to the famed vacant Union Station Powerhouse, which would be redeveloped. To do this, the team would need to purchase additional plots of land, bringing the site up to roughly 80 acres per Crain’s.
Rendering of The Railyards by Aecom
The project’s cost is unknown, but will be in the billions. However, it appears Ishbia is planning on privately funding the stadium and applying for infrastructure funds to help redevelop the rest of the site into a transit-oriented district. A formal timeline is also unknown, with Ishbia being able to take over the team as early as 2029, the same year the team’s Rate Field lease ends.
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
As long as they truly stick to being a transit oriented development and minimizing car parking as much as possible, this could be an enormous success.
I welcome it, even though it is frustrating that they would be abandoning the existing site and neighborhood. But maybe that will be a near term loss for a long-term new vision to make that part of the neighborhood much stronger.
Hard to see how they can make this transit oriented without proposing more transit. Thhe closest developed part of this site is a 15 minute walk from the closest L station, & most of the site is 20 minutes plus from the nearest rail station.
I would love for this to be one of the catalysts for a new subway for the Red Line that bypassed the central Loop from the portal at Willow to the one at 16th St. with stops at:
– The southern end of the 78 site
– The northern end of this site
– Union Station/Clinton Blue Line
– Ogilvie/Clinton Pink/Green Line
– Casino
– Goose Island
– North/Fremont/Clybourn
Build an incline for the Brown Line in the alley between Bissell and Clybourn so that a combination of Brown, Purple, Orange & Green Line trains could be routed through the State St. Subway, & build a new incline and subway from Larrabee on the Ravenswood Connector to the Clybourn Metra station with intermediate stops at North/Fremont/Clybourn and somewhere on the Lincoln Yards site.
Then not only would all the proposed megadevelopments have new transit access, but we’d be able to run more frequent service on all of the L branches too.
Tremendous! Oracle Park in San Fran is referenced but it also reminds me of of the wonderful PNC Park in Pittsburgh with its river location and the Roberto Clemente bridge that’s closed to traffic so many thousands of attendees can easily walk to the park from downtown. It creates a great atmosphere! The Northwestern health center would also be a big win for the near south side.
It’s important to realize that this is only possible becuase of the gradual rescue of the Chicago River. First being the Riverwalk, which has catalyzed development along the the North and South branches. 50 years ago the river was considered (and looked like) a gutter. Now “river views” command a rising price, and with the real estate comes the transit and park areas all can enjoy. I’m not a stadium-goer but I wish this developer 100% success.
If this happens it’d be really cool. Agree with the other commenter – this needs to be TOD with as little parking as possible.
That and people can/should use the parking that’ll be available at McDonald’s Park across the river at The 78 when the Fire aren’t playing.
If this is built, Would be nice to see new housing in Bridgeport where we now have parking lots for the Sox. It’s right by the redline. But what would they do with existing, relatively new stadium. I haven’t seen anyone address this
Rate Field is 35 years old. I wouldn’t call that new (regardless of the renovations over the years). Housing wouldn’t work because you would have to redevelop everything (not just the parking lots) and push out a church, schools and those living in CHA housing to make any redevelopment viable.
I’m not understanding why developers would need to ‘redevelop everything’ . There is a ton of parking near Amour Square and along the tracks from 33 to 39th. Surely someone could design something that has a reasonable amount of density but is also compatible with the existing residential feel of the area and is still economically viable/ profitable for the developers
There is no need to ‘redevelop everything.’ I suspect much of what you would get is a large townhome development as that would not require establishing a street grid. But TBD how much of an effect an Amtrak facility would have.
There are 50 acres (minus public rights of way) of contiguous parking lots surrounding the field, not including any existing development. I think that commenter is flat out wrong. That’s significantly larger than JDL’s 31 acres for Foundry Park (Lincoln Yards North)
Don’t do it. Redevelop the rail yards as housing and retail or something with a serious chance of being utilized year-round.
Sure, this is marginally better than a rail yard, but it’s squandering a great opportunity to utilize prime riverfront access.
Keep stadiums (especially baseball stadiums) outside of central business districts. The land is too valuable and the stadiums inevitably become eyesores with tons of parking. Besides, baseball stadiums can’t be enclosed and have very limited re-use. During the offseason, this is an absolute ghost town.
No serious American city has a baseball stadium within 3 miles of downtown (New York, Boston, DC, etc.).
I guess if Chicago wants to go the way of Detroit, Cleveland, or St. Louis, then go for it…
Interesting!
We appreciate the developer’s zeal to reveal design concepts and timeframe for decision making. We too on the Southside will need to assess regional options leading up to 2029. That includes the Illinois Sports Facility Authority and MPEA.
Detroit has all four lf their sports play downtown – and honestly – it is awesome. I am sure I’ll get they are not a serious American city- but their downtown is quite amazing and refurbished.
Fenway — 1.5 miles from Boston Common
Nationals Park — closer to the Capitol than that
Camden Yards — a few blocks from Baltimore City Hall
Petco Park — literally in downtown San Diego
Busch Stadium — walking distance from the Arch
Progressive Field, Comerica, Target Field, Great American, Coors, Chase, Daikin — all downtown
PNC Park — half a mile across the bridge from downtown Pittsburgh
Oracle Park and T-Mobile — about a mile each
Dodger Stadium — 1.5 miles from DTLA
Hate to break it to you buy Fenway is 2.8 miles from city hall. DC is not a real city.
I think the Cleveland setup is brilliant. Multiple stadiums and their casino in one location sharing parking infrastructure.
You’re assuming parking lots would be constructed; the renderings show no such thing.
Additionally, baseball stadiums CAN be enclosed (currently 8 of 30 ballparks are permanently enclosed, or have roofs that can be closed).
You’re also wrong about Boston (under 3 miles from downtown) and DC (under 1 mile from downtown), and in fact, ONLY 8 of 30 MLB teams have their ballpark located +3 miles from their downtown (Royals, Cubs, Rangers, Braves, Mets, Yankees, Dodgers, Angels) so the norm is actually having your ballpark located in close proximity to your city’s central business district.
This is firstly not true in America and certainly not true in transit heavy cities globally, London, Milan, Copenhagen all have world class stadiums near their central business districts. We have enough difficulty with infilling existing residential spaces, an anchor project like the stadium will help greatly especially is parking in not surface level.
Huh? Chicago is a very serious city. We have multiple city stadiums and we’re adding housing at the same time. Wrigley Field (6 miles) is in a residential neighborhood. United Center (four miles) is creating a new residential/entertainment district. McDonald’s Park (3 miles) will be in an entirely new neighborhood. Solider Field (O miles) is right downtown.
GREAT TO SEE THAT HE IS COMMITTED TO KEEPING THE WHITE SOX IN CHICAGO! I HOPE HE STILL HAS SOME MONEY AVAILABLE TO PLAY THE BALL PLAYERS ENOUGH TO HAVE A COMPETITVE TEAM!
GO WHITE SOX!!!!
Hey BEARS…you watching this.
Thank goodness the Fire, Sox and Blackhawks are taking interest in the near west and south sides. I’m sure this is still years away but at least it’s a start on something that could be very good for our city.
I like the pedestrian bridge in the rendering.
The city should intervene to ensure that the roads aren’t curvy for no reason, like 14th is in the rendering. The grid is one of our greatest planning feats, and if given the opportunity every developer would break it up for their project.
There’s a lot to like here, more than I was expecting TBH.
A strong addition would be another pedestrian/bike bridge, over the river someplace between the Roosevelt Road and 18th Street bridges.
First off, I strongly agree with Tom’s assessment: Stadiums should not be so close to the central business district (although I am willing to overlook the new Chicago Fire site given its smallish size and that it is already a fait accompli). Secondly, this site is too far from the State Street Subway and Green/Orange Line station, neither of which currently have the capacity to handle such large crowds (in contrast to other, more generous transit systems such as Berlin’s). Thirdly, although the Sox built a bad park thirty-five years ago, why not try to improve it and the neighborhood too? If nothing else, the team could build a “third Comiskey” on the north side of 35th Street where the first Comiskey once stood. Lastly, the Sox simply do not deserve to be so close to the Loop, which is perhaps a mean-spirited thing to say but not at all inappropriate either.
Not sure you have walked around Roosevelt and Canal – but this is a MAJOR STEP UP.
I wouldn’t necessarily say this is located so near to the CBD, which is generally assumed to be the Loop.
One could make the same argument that railyards shouldn’t be so close to the CBD. Or the low rise townhouses east of Clark St. There is far too much underutilized land with the opportunity for density and diversity of functions and urban amenities.
Concerning about this are how it might impact the host of rail improvement projects needed. Notably the Saint Charles Airline to Union Station. I would support the development if it was clear it would not negatively impact long-term rail plans for Metra and Amtrak.
I love that the renderings envision a radical upzoning of Dearborn Park II east of State 😜 could definitely use that
Dearborn Park doesn’t go east of state