Bally’s will have to deal city officials a revised design for its permanent Chicago casino and entertainment complex after discovering initial plans for a 35-story hotel tower could damage city water pipes on the River West site, officials said Wednesday.
Leaders at the Rhode Island-based corporation are still working with the city to figure out where to eventually put the tower on the 30-acre site that’s currently home to the Chicago Tribune printing plant at Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street.
But it can’t go on the north end of the parcel adjacent to the Chicago River as originally planned “due to unforeseen infrastructure issues,” a Bally’s spokesperson said in a statement emailed to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Bally’s original plan approved by the City Council in late 2022 called for a 100-room hotel along the river at Chicago Avenue, with the tower and its 400 additional rooms to be built in a second phase within five years.
A city source said Bally’s determined building the foundation for the 505,000-square foot tower there might damage major water pipes near the river, and the city agreed.
City officials are reviewing a revised plan submitted Tuesday to the Department of Buildings that instead calls for the 100-room hotel to be built in a 74-foot tall building near an event space slated for the south end of the site.
Bally’s said the tower would go elsewhere on the site “as promised.” Renderings weren’t released.
“We are one step closer to the start of construction of the permanent casino by working closely with all stakeholders including the city,” a Bally’s spokesperson said in the email. “We look forward to getting shovels in the ground in 2024.”
Bally’s has said it plans to start construction on the permanent casino this summer.
It’s been operating a temporary casino since last summer at the historic Medinah Temple at 600 N. Wabash Ave., where early returns have been underwhelming. It generated about $3.1 million for the city in three-plus months of operation, well short of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s budget projections.
The glass-faced hotel tower was a key part of Bally’s proposal that helped it land Lightfoot’s nod as Chicago’s casino operator over two other experienced companies.
Under its host city agreement with Chicago, Bally’s is contractually obligated to build the tower as well as a 65,000-square foot convention center and a 3,000-seat theater, among other amenities. And it has to spend at least $1.34 billion to make it all happen.
Bally’s says it’s still “on schedule” to leave Medinah and open the permanent casino by Sept. 9, 2026, as required by state law.
