A groundbreaking was held for the first concourse of the massive expansion of O’Hare International Airport, now known as ORDNext. The ceremony was attended by local officials and comes after months of site prep work ahead of foundation work. With this, also came a new timeline for the project that differs from the last time we covered the project.
New details have been revealed for the long-anticipated DuSable Park, located at 401 N DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Streeterville. Situated on a small peninsula east of the highway, the park has been in development for years, alongside the rapidly rising 400 N Lake Shore Drive project next door. Efforts are being led by the Chicago Park District and is partially funded by the 400 LSD development.
Progress is ongoing for a new entrance at the Racine Blue Line platform on the city’s Near West Side. The station, which lies between the inbound and outbound lanes of the Eisenhower Expressway and is two blocks west of the Morgan Street substation we looked at last week, is part of the CTA’s $3 billion plan to reconstruct the Forest Park Branch of the Blue Line system. The Racine renovation alone, which extends from Racine Avenue to the east to Loomis Street to the west, is estimated to cost approximately $23 million.
A new substation is being built over the right-of-way at Morgan Street in the West Loop, part of the CTA’s Forest Park Branch Rebuild project along the Blue Line. A new construction permit was issued on August 1, 2023 to begin work. F.H. Paschen took over as the general contractor with the issuance of a revision on November 24 that same year.
What looks like it could be an uber-modern single-family home you see rising on the corner of Kimball and Barry Avenues in Avondale is a CTA substation for the Blue Line trains. Addressed by the city as 3501 West Barry Avenue, the substation is just one block south of the Belmont Blue Line subway station.
