Lease signed: Chicago Fire to build $80M training center on Chicago Housing Authority land

No matter who is elected mayor next month, there will be no undoing the controversial zoning change outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot muscled through the City Council allowing the Chicago Fire soccer club to build an $80 million training center on Chicago Housing Authority land.

Lightfoot made certain of that on Monday, announcing she and Fire owner Joe Mansueto had signed the ground lease for the new training center on 23.3 acres of Near West Side land formerly occupied by the CHA’s ABLA Homes.

The site is bounded by Roosevelt Road, Ashland Avenue, 14th Street and Loomis Street. The 53,000-square-foot facility will include two-and-a-half hybrid grass pitches with a hydronic heating system; three synthetic turf pitches protected by an insulated dome between November and March; and a two story-performance center.

La Voz Sidebar

Lea este artículo en español en La Voz Chicago, la sección bilingüe del Sun-Times.

Besides paying $8 million upfront, the Fire will pay annual rent to the CHA. It will start at almost $800,000, with increases in future years. The lease extends 40 years with two 10-year renewal options and is expected to generate $40 million in revenue for the CHA over the next 40 years.

“This new partnership … will secure substantial funds to improve aging public housing at ABLA Brooks and Loomis Courts and create long-term employment opportunities for CHA residents. It will serve as a catalyst for future growth on the Near West Side for years to come,” CHA CEO Tracey Scott was quoted as saying in a press release announcing the deal had been sealed.

The Fire “deserves to have a high-quality training facility that not only meets their needs but fosters the growth of talented athletes,” Lightfoot said.

“This potential new facility will both fulfill this need and provide the surrounding West Side community with job opportunities, recreational activities and community gathering spaces. Additionally, the millions of dollars in rental income generated by this project will support the CHA’s efforts to rehabilitate and build affording housing in the surrounding areas,” the mayor was quoted as saying.

Chicago Fire owner and chairman Joe Mansueto said his soccer club is “excited to put down roots” in the Near West Side’s Roosevelt Square neighborhood.

“The development of our new facility will provide a state-of-the-art training environment for our players, coaches and sporting staff,” Mansueto was quoted as saying.

“Our facility will also serve as a community programing home to the next generation of Chicagoans, bringing our city together through the sport of soccer.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

In late September, Lightfoot regrouped and won Council passage of a zoning change for the training center shot down by the Zoning Committee one day before.

Two months later, former mayoral challenger Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) asked Chicago’s Board of Ethics and inspector general to investigate Lightfoot for accepting a $25,000 contribution from Mansueto two months after she muscled the zoning change through a reluctant Council.

In a letter to IG Deborah Witzburg and Ethics Board Executive Director Steve Berlin, Lopez said he believed the contribution from Mansueto, founder and majority owner of Morningstar Inc., “represents a gross & familiar abuse of power and, at minimum, a potential violation” of the city’s ethics ordinance.

“My concerns are just the perception of the impropriety of deals being made — public land being given away meant for housing — and the result being less than altruistic. This seems very much like typical Chicago way, pay-to-play politics that the mayor has railed against and ran against when she was elected,” Lopez told the Chicago Sun-Times.

“For a $25,000 donation to come less than two months after receiving 26 acres of public land is something that all of us deserve clarity on,” Lopez added.

“We need to know if this was a quid pro quo involving ... the use of CHA land to build this Chicago Fire training facility. The fact that the mayor had to bring back the Zoning Committee to undo a previous vote just so she could push it forward tells you how much pressure was put to make this deal go through. Now, we know why.”

Brian Rich/Sun-Times

Christina Freundlich, a spokesperson for the Lightfoot campaign, insisted then that government decision-making under Lightfoot was “firewalled from political campaign activities” and that Lightfoot’s team “executes a rigorous vetting process on every contribution to ensure we have complied with all campaign finance rules and laws.”

Mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson said Monday he opposes building anything on CHA land that is “not public housing.”

However, his campaign manager, Jason Lee said “if this is already a done deal, we’ll live with it and make sure public housing gets built on other sites.”

Paul Vallas, his opponent in the April 4 runoff, hasn’t taken a public position on the training facility.